This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy of the book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. BARBARA CLAY FINCH. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. ILonlion : REMINGTON AND CO., New Bond Street, W. 1883. [All Rights Reserved.] CONTENTS. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA ( Continued). CHAPTER II. Coolness of the King and Prince — Prince George made a Knight of the Garter — Death of Frederick — Grief of the Princess — Her good sense — Reception of the news by the King — Funeral of the Prince — Jacobite epitaph on him — His character — His lines to his wife — His patronage of literary men — Prince George's conduct — Visit of the King to the Princess — Birth of Caroline Matilda — Augusta named as Regent — Her retired life — Alteration in her character — Her strictness with her children — General respect paid to her — Establishment of the young Prince of Wales — Death of Princess Elizabeth — Death of George II. — His funeral — Character of George III. — Lines addressed to him — His admiration for Lady Sarah Lennox — His betrothal to the Princess Charlotte — Her arrival in London — Her reception — Marriage of George and Charlotte — Queen's appearance in public — The coronation — Dress of the Princess of Wales — The banquet — Royal visit to the City — Banquet at the Guildhall ..... CHAPTER III. Changes at the Court — A Royal ball— Harsh conduct of Augusta— Her influence over the King — Unpopularity of the Princess — FUe given by Lady Northumberland — Illness of the King — Birth of the Prince of Wales— Marriage of the Lady Augusta — The Regency Bill— Marriage of the Princess Caro line Matilda— Her letter to the Duke of Tork— Marriage of the Duke of Gloucester — His children — Marriage of the Duke of Cumberland — The Royal Marriage Act — Death of the Duke of York — Letter of Caroline Matilda to her mother- Death of the Princess Louisa— The Royal children— Rash conduct of the Queen of Denmark— Augusta's visit to Ger many and Denmark— Her illness— Arrest of Caroline Ma tilda—Grief of Augusta— Her death— Her character— Elegy upon her — Her children ..••¦¦ 39 CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. CHAPTER I. An unhappy Princess — Birth of Caroline — Anecdotes of her child hood — Her education — Her suitors — George Prince of Wales — Lord Malmesbury's mission — His opinion of Caroline — The Court of Brunswick — Lord Malmesbury's conversations with the Princess— Her letter — Her last days at Brunswick — Visit of the Abbess of Gandersheim to her — Her departure — Her behaviour — -Her arrival at Greenwich — Her dress — Meeting of George and Caroline — Her imprudent conduct — Tbe Royal marriage — Shameful treatment of the Princess — Her ami ability—The Prince's debts— The fSte at Frogmore — The picture of the Royal wedding — A royal visit to the theatre . 71 CHAPTER II. Caroline's letters to her friends— The Prince's treatment of her — Birth of the Princess Charlotte — Separation of the Prince and Princess — Correspondence between Caroline and George III. — Her letters to her husband — The Prince's reply — Marriage of the Princess Royal — Caroline and her infant — Her life at Blackheath — Her petition to the Prince — The Princess Charlotte — Letters of the Princess Royal — Visit of the King to the Princess — His kindness to her — Princess Charlotte's will — Young Austin — The Princess's intimacy with Lady Douglas — The Delicate Investigation — Caroline's letter to Lord Eldon — Her treatment by her husband — Her conduct at the Drawing-room — Death of her father — Arrival of her mother in England — Her appearance — Anecdotes of her ...... 103 CHAPTER III. Caroline's pecuniary difficulties — Insanity of the King — Letter of the Princess— Her amusements — Her dress — Her letter to Lady Charlotte Lindsay— Her indiscreet confidences — Her reception of Campbell and Rogers — Her affection for her child— Description of Princess Charlotte — Caroline's letter to Lady Charlotte — Her remonstrance to her husband — Death of the Duchess of Brunswick — Caroline's farewell to her brother — Her letters to Miss Hayman — Her removal to Connaught House — Her foolish proceedings — Betrothal of the Princess Charlotte — Misgivings of the bride-elect — Arrival of the Emperor of Russia — Correspondence of the Queen and the Princess of Wales — Caroline's letter to the Prince Regent — Her unselfishness . . . . 1 46 CHAPTER IV. Neglect of the Princess by the Emperor of Russia— Unpopularity of the Prince Regent — Unhappiness of Caroline— Scene at the Opera — Public enthusiasm for her — Her liveliness — Breaking off of the Princess Charlotte's engagement— Her father's treatment of her— Her flight to her mother— The Princess of Wales' good sense— Her determination to travel — Brougham's letter to her— Her obstinacy — Her departure . 191 CHAPTER V. Arrival of the Princess of Wales at Brunswick — Her tour in Switzerland — Her friendship with the Empress Marie LouiRe —Her journey to Italy — Her letter to Lady Charlotte Lindsay — Her imprudence — Residence at Genoa — Her wan dering life — Letter to Lady C. Lindsay — Betrothal of the Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold— Her happiness — Her marriage — Attachment of husband and wife — Travels of the Princess of Wales — The Order of St. Caroline — Reckless proceedings of the Princess — Death of the Princess Charlotte — The Milan Commission — Death of George III. — Various accounts of Queen Caroline — Her resolve to come to England ¦ — Her arrival at St. Omer — Lord Hutchinson's mission — Correspondence between Lord Hutchinson and Mr. Brougham — Brougham's remonstrances — The Queen's obstinacy — Her arrival at Dover — Her reception in London — Lord Macaulay's lines — The Queen's hopes of a reconciliation — Correspondence between the Queen and Lord Liverpool — Her messages to Parliament — Enthusiasm manifested for her in the army — Her answers to addresses — Report of the Secret Committee — The Bill of Pains and Penalties — The Italian witnesses — Dr. Parr — The Queen's bold replies — Her removal to Bran- denburgh House — Popular sympathy with her . . . 220 CHAPTER VI. The Queen's trial — Her attendance at the House of Lords — Evidence of the Italian witnesses — Brougham's speech — Displeasure of the King— Denman's speech — Popularity of the Queen — Visit of Prince Leopold — Abandonment of the Bill— Reception of the news by the Queen — Enthusiasm in the country — Scene in the House — The thanksgiving service at St. Paul's — The provision for the Queen — Libels on the Qneen — The approaching coronation — The King's resolve — Caroline's appearance jafc the Abbey — Her repulse — Her ill ness — Her death — Her will ..... 283 CHAPTER VII. Preparations for the Queen's funeral— Progress of the cortege— Disgraceful scenes — Embarkation at Harwich — Journey from Cuxhaven to Brunswick- The funeral ceremony — Oration of the Pastor Woolf— Libel on the dead Queen— Her character . 326 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. (Continued.) CHAPTER II. Coolness of the King and Prince — Prince George made a Knight of the Garter — Death of Frederick — Grief of the Princess — Her good sense — Reception of the news by the King — Funeral of the Prince — Jacobite epitaph on him — His character — His lines to his wife — His ' patronage of literary men — Prince George's conduct — Visit of the King to the Princess — Birth of Caroline Matilda — Augusta named as Regent — Her retired life — Alteration in her character — Her strictness with her children — General respect paid to her — Establishment of the young Prince of Wales — Death of Princess Elizabeth — Death of George II. — His funeral — - Character of George III. — Lines addressed to him — His admiration for Lady Sarah Lennox — His betrothal to the Princess Charlotte — Her arrival in London — Her reception- Marriage of George and Charlotte- — -Queen's appearance in public — The coronation — Dress of the Princess of Wales — The banquet — Royal visit to the City — Banquet at the Guildhall. The reconciliation between the King and the Prince, never a very sincere one, did not seem likely to be of an enduring nature. When the King returned from that campaign on the Con tinent in which he had won renown by his victory at Dettingen, Frederick, with his two sisters, stood to receive him on the stairs of St. James's 2 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Palace; but the father passed without vouch safing by word or sign that he was aware of his son's presence, although the accouchement of the Princess of Wales had only taken place the day before, and Prince George was then lying ill with small-pox. Not long after, the Prince formally declared a new opposition, aud " began it pretty handsomely," says Horace Walpole, " with 143 to 184, which has frightened the Ministry like a bomb." The children learned from their father to set themselves against the King. Baron von Steinberg was sent once by the royal grandfather to examine the progress in learning made by his grandchildren. The second boy, Prince Edward, was well up in Latin, but the Baron told him he would please the King more if he gained greater proficiency in German. " German ! " said Edward, contemptuously ; " any dull boy can learn that." Notwithstanding the breach that was again re opened between the father and son, the Order of the Garter was conferred on Prince George in 1749. Prederick carried the boy to the door of the King's closet, where the Duke of Dorset re ceived him and led him to his grandfather. Prince George commenced a speech which had been taught him by his tutor Ayscough; but at the first words his father stopped him with a peremptory "No, no ! " Perplexed by the inter ruption, the Prince hesitated, paused, and began a second time, only to be again silenced, and this time effectually. The estrangement between the King and Prince lasted till the latter's death. This event took place, somewhat unexpectedly, on the 20th of March, 1751. He had for years suffered from a permanent weakness of one lung, brought on by the neglect of an injury caused by the blow of a AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 3 tennis ball at his country seat of Cliefden. In the winter he had had an attack of pleurisy, from which he had now partially recovered ; and in his impatience of precaution, behaved so recklessly that Sir Robert Walpole's remark to George II. during the latter's illness would have been equally suitable if addressed to the son ; " Sir, do you know what your father died of ? Of thinking he could not die." He attended at the House of Lords early in March, came home heated, and lay down three hours in a cold room with an open window, in Carlton House. Removing at night to Leicester House, he awoke the next morning in danger of his life. He rallied for a time, saw his friends, and calling his eldest son, embraced him tenderly, and said " Come, George, let us be good friends while we are permitted to do so." Three physicians and two surgeons, Wilmot and Hawkins, attended him, and, strangely enough, pronounced him out of danger the day before his death. On the evening, " some members of his family were at cards in the adjacent room, and Desnoyers, the celebrated dancing-master, who, like St. Leon, was as good a violinist as he was a dancer, was playing the violin at the Prince's bedside, when the latter was seized with a violent fit of coughing. When this had ceased, Wilmot expressed a hope that his royal patient would be better, and would pass a quiet night. Hawkins detected symptoms which he thought of great gravity. The cough returned with, increased violence, and Frederick, placing his hand upon his stomach, murmured feebly, ' Je sens la mort ! ' Desnoyers held him up, and feeling him shiver, exclaimed, ' The Prince is going ! ' At that moment the Princess of Wales was at the foot, of the bed; she caught up a candle, rushed to the head of the bed, and, bend- 4 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. ing down over her husband's face, she saw that h& was dead."* The newly-made widow, left so suddenly deso late, acted with touching and dignified grief in her bereavement. She had altered much since those days of her inexperienced girlhood, when her favourite occupation was to dandle her doll at the palace windows. So discreetly and judiciously had she behaved that Horace Walpole, writing shortly before her husband's death, observes, " I firmly believe, by all her quiet sense, she will turn out a Caroline." The same writer speaks again in another passage of her " quiet inoffensive good sense ; " declares that she " had never said a foolish thing, or done a disobliging one since her arrival, though in very difficult situations, young, uninstructed, and besieged by the Queen, Princess Emily, and Lady Archibald's creatures, and very jarring interests ; " and adds that she was always likely to have preserved an ascendancy over her husband. " She had," says Dr. Doran, " through out her married life exhibited much mental superiority, with great kindness of disposition, and that under circumstances of great difficulty, and sometimes of a character to inflict vexation on the calmest nature." For four hours after the Prince's death she refused to quit his side, dis believing the assurances of the physicians that all was over, and hoping against hope that he might revive. "She was then the mother of eight children, expecting shortly to be the mother of a ninth, and she was brought reluctantly to ac knowledge that their father was no more. It was six in the morning before her attendants could persuade her to retire to bed ; but she rose again at eight, and then, with less thought for her grief * Dr. Doran. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 5 than anxiety for the honour of him whose death was the cause of it, she proceeded to the Prince's room, and burned the whole of his private papers. By this the world lost some rare supplementary chapters to a Chronique Scandaleuse ! "* The King was not very much agitated by the news. It was brought him at Kensington, as he stood by a card-table, watching the players. Princess Amelia, the Duchess of Dorset, the Duke of Grafton, and Madame Walmoden, now en nobled as Countess of Yarmouth. Turning to the messenger he remarked, " Dead, is he ? Why, they told me he was better ; " and then, crossing over to Lady Yarmouth, he said, calmly, " Countess, Fred is gone ; " and dismissed the subject from his thoughts. He did however rouse himself to send a very kind message to his widowed daughter-in-law, which he repeated in writing the next morning, and sent by Lord Lincoln. The Princess " received him alone, sitting with her eyes fixed ; thanked the King much, and said she would write as soon as she was able ; in the meantime recommended her miserable self and children to him."-)- His Majesty, however, troubled himself not at all about, the ceremonial of the funeral, ¦which was, consequently, mean and unhonoured in the extreme. The Prince's own household, and the lords who held the pall, two sons of dukes, two privy councillors, an Irish peer (Lord Lincoln), and a baron's son, attended ; but not a single bishop or English lord — a fact due, not to inten tional disrespect, but to the circumstance that no official notice of the funeral arrangements had been issued. The body was carried from the House of Lords to the Abbey without a canopy, no anthem was sung, and the organ was silent * Dr. Doran. t Horace Walpole. 6 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. during the performance of the service. The spirit of partizanship was carried to extremes of utter meanness. " The gentlemen of the Prince's bed chamber were ordered to be in attendance near the body, from ten in the morning to the conclu sion of the funeral. The government, however, would order them no refreshment, and the Board of Green Cloth would provide them with none, without such order. Even though princes die, il faut que tout le monde vive ; and accordingly these poor gentlemen sent to a neighbouring tavern, and gave orders for a cold dinner to be furnished them. The authorities were too tardily ashamed of thus insulting faithful servants of rank and distinction, and commanded the neces sary refreshments to be provided. They were ac cepted, but the tavern dinner was paid for and given to the poor."* The Jacobites expressed their views of the defunct Prince in their well-known epitaph on him, which, though often quoted, is here sub joined : — Here lies Fred, Who was alive and is dead! Had it been his father, I had much rather. Had it been his mother, Still better than another. Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her. Had it been the whole generation, Still better for the nation. But since 'tis only Fred, Who was alive and is dead, There is no more to be said. A London clergyman was not much more1 eulogistic concerning the dead heir-apparent. " He had no great parts, but he had great virtues — * Dr. Doran. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 7 indeed, they degenerated into vices. He was very generous ; but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people ; and then, his condescension was such that he kept very bad company." Indeed the Prince's character was what could only be characterized as singularly unsatis factory. He had many good points, and was a man of, to a certain extent, cultivated tastes; and was yet capable of the most unbridled pro fligacy and sensuality. Sincerity was to him almost an unknown virtue ; and he did not appear to understand the meaning of consistency. He would write both French and English ballads in ecstatic praise of his chere Sylvie, as he called the Princess ; and would then hurry to the blandish ments of other less legitimate objects of adoration. A specimen of one of these laudatory efforts will serve to show the style of his verses. The Princess, amongst much that was harassing and annoying, must have been pleased to receive the evidently sincere, though not very poetical, tribute : — The Chabms of Sylvia. Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes, That swim with pleasure and delight, Nor those heavenly arches which arise O'er each of them to shade their light. 'Tis not that hair which plays with every wind, And loves to wanton round thy face ; ¦ Now straying round the forehead, now behind, Retiring with insidious grace. 'Tis not that lovely range of teeth so white As new-shorn sheep, equal and fair ; Nor e'en that gentle smile, the heart's delight, With which no smile could e'er compare. 'Tis not the living colour over each By Nature's finest pencil wrought, To shame the full-blown rose, and blooming peach, And mock the happy painter's thought. 8 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. No — 'tis that gentleness of mind, that love So kindly answering my desire ; That grace with which you look, and speak, and move, That thus has set my soul on fire. "He loved," says Dr. Doran, "to have his children with him, always appeared most happy when in the bosom of his family, left them with regret, and met them again with smiles, kisses, and tears. He walked the streets unattended, to the great delight of the people; was the pre siding Apollo at great festivals, conferred the prizes at rowings and racings, and talked familiarly with Thames fishermen on the mysteries of their craft. He would enter the cottages of the poor, listen with patience to their twice-told tales, and partake with relish of the humble fare presented to him. So did the old soldier find in him a ready listener to the story of his campaigns and the subject of his petitions ; and never did the illustriously maimed appeal to him in vain. He was a man to be loved in spite of all his vices. He would have been adored had his virtues been more, or more real. But his virtue was too often — like his love for popular and Parliamentary liberty — rather affected than real; and at all events, not to be relied upon." This love of freedom he was always anxious to impress upon the minds of his audience. A deputation of Quakers, who prayed him to give his support to a Bill in their favour, were answered, "As I am a friend to liberty in general, and to toleration in particular, I wish you may meet with all proper favour ; but, for myself, I never gave my vote in Parliament ; and to influence my friends, or direct my servants in theirs, does not become my station. To leave them entirely to their own consciences and understandings is a rule I have hitherto pre- AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 9 •scribed to myself, and purpose through life to observe." This announcement— which so charmed the honest Quakers that their spokesman, Andrew Pitt, made reply, "May it please the Prince of Wales, I am greatly affected with thy excellent notions of liberty, and am more pleased with the answer thou hast given us than if thou hadst granted our request " — was by no means a sincere one; The Prince did expect his entourage to take their opinions from him, and was very irate when they did not. " Does he think," said he of Lord Doneraile, who had ventured on having convic tions of his own, " that I will support him unless he will do as I should have him ? Does he not consider that whoever may be my ministers, I must be King ? " The best side of Frederick's character was his graceful and generous patronage of literary men. He was charmed with the stately sententiousness of the " Rambler," and never rested until he had sought and proffered his services to the writer. He visited Pope at Twickenham, gave to Tindal a gold medal with, forty guineas, and sent to Glover, the author of " Leonidas," a five hundred jxmnd note when he heard the poet was in dis tressed circumstances. He gave Thomson, of " Seasons' " celebrity, a pension of £100 a-year, and commanded him to write the "Masque of Alfred," which was acted before him at Cliefden in 1740, the poet acknowledging his kindness by dedicating his poem on " Liberty," and his tragedy of "Agamemnon," to him, and his play of " Edward and Eleanora " to his wife. He re ceived authors at his Court, greeted them cordially, and often gave them precedence of those whose rank was greater than their brains. Indeed, he .endeavoured to join their ranks, and made various 10 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. attempts at poetry. Most of his verses were in praise of his wife. " The matter," says Dr. Dorany " was good, but the manner was execrable. The lady deserved all that was said, but her virtues merited a more gracefully skilled eulogist. The reasoning was perfect, but the rhymes halted abominably." On the whole, though, neither so obstinate, so coarsely unfaithful, or so ill- tempered as his father, and though he had a winning presence, and was not devoid of attractive qualities, he was a man whose character it is im possible to esteem, and who would have little benefited his country, had he been called to reign over it ; and most people will agree with the dry remark of Walpole, that he resembled the Black Prince in nothing but in dying before his father. The young Prince George, now, by his father's death, Prince of Wales, is said by Walpole to have behaved "excessively well" at this juncture. He was a good, amiable boy, with no great keen ness of imagination or feeling. When told of the death, he turned pale, and put his hand on his- chest. "I am afraid, sir," said his tutor, Dr. Ayscough, rather foolishly, "you are not well." " I feel," said George, " something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Frederick merited, perhaps, a somewhat warmer expression of regret from his eldest son ; for in spite of his numerous faults, he had always been a kind and indulgent parent to his children. Shortly after the funeral, George II. came to pay a visit of condolence to the widowed Princess. Though his son's death had not been any very severe affliction to him, he retained all his old sentimentality ; and the sight of the young widow, surrounded by her children, and so soon expecting AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 11 the birth of another infant, was sufficiently touch ing and interesting to arouse his compassion and sympathy. A chair of state had been placed for him, but he refused it, took a seat on the couch beside the Princess, embraced her, and wept with her. The Lady Augusta would have kissed his hand, but he would not permit it ; and giving it to her brothers, bade them " be good, brave boys, obedient to their mother, and deserve the fortune to which they were born." " The King and Princess," says Walpole, " both took their parts at once ; she, of flinging herself entirely into his hands, and studying nothing but his pleasure, but with winding what interest she got with him to the advantage of her own, and the Prince's friends ; the King of acting the tender grandfather; which he, who had never acted the tender father, grew so pleased with representing, that he soon became it in earnest." Four months after the death of Frederick, the Princess of Wales gave birth to a daughter, after wards to be well known in history as the ill-fated Caroline Matilda. In the same year she was named by the King and Parliament as Regent of the kingdom, should the King die before the young Prince of Wales had attained his majority — an appointment which gave great offence to William, Duke of Cumberland, of Culloden memory, who looked upon the office as his special right. She continued her residence in Leicester House, living- in dignified seclusion among her children. Bubb Dodington gives a pleasant picture of an evening there in an entry in his "Diary," dated 17th November, 1753: — " The Princess sent for me to attend her between eight and nine o'clock. I went to Leicester House,. expecting a small company and a little musick^ 12 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. but found nobody but her Royal Highness. She made me draw a stool and sit by the fireside. Soon after came in the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward, and then the Lady Augusta, all in an undress, and took their stools and sat round the fire with us. We continued talking of familiar occurrences till between ten and eleven, with the same ease and unreservedness and uncon- straint as if one had dropped into a sister's house that had a family to pass the evening. It is much to be wished that the Princess conversed familiarly with more people of a certain know ledge of the world." This life of retirement, chosen by Augusta and Lord Bute, who shared with her the guardianship of the heir-apparent, was one of the greatest mistakes into which she fell. " In her earnest desire," says Mrs Russell Grey, " to preserve him from the faults and follies of those around him, she did not act with perfect judgment; for she went so far as to keep him from all intercourse with the young nobility of his own age, and con fined his knowledge of the world to books, and the small circle of Leicester House. Consequently he had no opportunity of forming his own opinions on different subjects, and became timid and re served ; so that the Princess at last herself said that she wished the Prince was a little more forward, and would enter more freely into conver sation with people." Thrown back on their own resources, the two brothers, ' George and Edward, had curious conversations between themselves. One day, when their mother was sitting, melan choly and abstracted, in a room at Leicester House, with the two boys playing near her, " Brother," said the younger one, " when we are men, you shall marry, and I will keep a mistress." AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. IS " Be quiet, Eddy," rebuked George, " we shall have anger presently for your nonsense. There must be no mistresses at all." Thereupon the Princess sharply bade them learn their nouns and pronouns. " Can you tell me," she said to Prince Edward, " what a pronoun is ? " " Of course I can," replied her son, " a pronoun is to a noun what a mistress is to a wife — a substitute and a representative ." It may have been the responsibility thrown upon her that altered so materially the character of Augusta. Never, perhaps, did anyone change more completely than did the Princess Dowager of Wales. Submissive, blindly obedient, childish, and colourless, when she first came to England as a bride, she had, as we have already noticed — impelled perhaps by her husband's weakness and untrustworthiness — developed much sound sense and good judgment ; and now that she was left with the weighty charge of the training and education of her many children, the eldest of whom was the heir to the throne, the onerous nature of her duties seems to have hardened and harrowed her, till she grew stern and unsym- pathizing, even while upright and conscientious. Thackeray speaks of her as shrewd, hard, and domineering, and says she must have been a clever, cruel woman ; but this is probably exaggerated language. Still, the change is so great that we are inclined to ask wonderingly whether it is possible that the shy girl^ mentioned in her youth almost contemptuously as the " mere tool " of her husband, can possibly be the same as the severe, prim, uncompromising mother who influenced so deeply the honest and not very active mind of George III. She was strict with her children, and Thackeray tells how William, Duke of 14 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Gloucester, sitting one day silent and melancholy, was sharply asked by his mother the reason of his unhappiness. " I was thinking," he answered. •" Thinking, sir ! and of what ? " "I was thinking if ever I have a son I will not make him so un happy as you make me." She had a prejudice against the Duke of Cumberland, which her eldest son shared. One day he entered his uncle's room, and the latter reached down a splendid sabre from the wall to exhibit to him. The boy started and turned pale, as if fearing that harm was meditated ; and the Duke complained bitterly to the Princess Dowager that shameful prejudices had been influencing the young heir. In spite of the tenacity of her opinions and the outward stern ness of her manner, Augusta was a careful and anxious mother, and brought up her little ones to the best of her ability. Though she generally lived so secluded a life, she occasionally appeared in public, when, says Walpole, " the King gave her the same honours and place as the Queen used to have." She was never neglected or forgotten by society. " Young and old rendered her full respect. One of the most singular processions crossed the Fields in January, 1756. The object was to pay the homage of a first visit to the Court of the Dowager Princess of Wales at Leicester House — the visitors being a newly- married young couple, the Hon. Mr Spencer and the ex-Miss Poyntz (later Earl and Countess of Spencer). The whole party were contained in two carriages and a ' Sedan chair.' Inside the first were Earl Cowper and the bridegroom. Hanging on from behind were three footmen in State liveries. In the second carriage were the mother and sister of the bride, with similar human adorn ments on the outside as with the first carriage. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 15 Last, and alone, of course, as became her state, in a new Sedan, came the bride, in white and silver, as fine as brocade and trimming could make it. The chair itself was lined with white satin, was preceded by a black page, and was followed by three gorgeous lackeys. Nothing ever was more brilliant than the hundred thousand pounds' worth of diamonds worn by the bride except her own tears in her beautiful eyes when she first saw them and the begging letter of the lover which accompanied them. As he handed her from the chair, the bridegroom seemed scarcely less be-diamoned than the bride. His shoe- buckles alone had those precious stones in them to the value of thirty thousand pounds." * In this year (1756), George II. sent a message to the young Prince of Wales, his grandson, offer ing him apartments at St. James's and Kensington, and an allowance of £40,000 a year. The allow ance the Prince accepted, but declined the offer of apartments, giving as his reason that it would be painful to his mother should* he separate from her — an excuse that must have been more of a pretext for escaping from an unpalatable proposal than anything else, if it be true, as Bubb Doding ton asserts, that George did not live with the Princess either in town or country. Prince Edward — described a year or two previously by Walpole as " a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, a sayer of things, and much the favourite" — was given an income of £5,000 a year. He was much attracted by the grace and vivacity of Lady Essex, Sir Charles Williams' daughter. " The Prince," writes Walpole, " has got his liberty, and seems extremely disposed to use it, and has great life and good humour. She has already made a ball * " Leicester Fields." Tide " Temple Bar," June, 1874. 16 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. for him. Sir Richard Lyttleton was so wise as to make her a visit, and advise her not to meddle with politics ; that the Princess Dowager would conclude that it was a plan laid for bringing together Prince Edward and Mr. Fox. As Mr. Fox was not just the person my Lady Essex was thinking of bringing together with Prince Edward, she replied, very cleverly, 'And, my dear Sir Richard, let me advise you not to meddle with politics neither.' " In the following year the Princess of Wales " bestowed," says Walpole, " an annuity of one hundred pounds on a young Scotch clergyman (John Home), who having been persecuted by the kirk for writing a tragedy called Douglas, threw himself and his piece on the protection of the Earl of Bute." The Princess Elizabeth, the second daughter of Augusta — she whose delicacy and whose desire to act with her brothers and sisters has already been noticed — died at Kew after only two days' illness on the 4th of September, 1759, at the age of eighteen. She was privately interred in the vault at Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster on the 14th, being the first child whose loss the Princess of Wales was called upon to mourn. The follow ing year a death occurred which attracted infinitely more of the public interest than that of the- deli cate girl. The old King, now considerably over seventy, had, with the exception of a sharp attack of gout a year or two previously, enjoyed fairly good health for some time ; but the old lion in the royal menagerie at the Tower had lately died, and there was a curious superstition that this por tended the decease of the sovereign — a superstition shared, says Lord Chesterfield, " by many above people," that is to say, by those whose rank and AUGUSTA OP SAXE-GOTHA. 17 standing ought to have ensured a greater amount of sense. On the morning of the 26th of October, 1760, the King rose as usual at six in the morning, drank his cup of chocolate, and said he would take a stroll in the garden. As he passed through an ante-room on his way thither, the page in waiting heard the sound of a fall, and hastily following him, found the King on the ground, with his face cut by falling against a bureau. " Send for Amelia," he gasped, and ere the words were fairly uttered, died. The Princess, summoned in haste, came to find her father lying dead. She despatched messengers to the physicians, and wrote to her nephew, George. He had, however, received earlier intelligence of the event which made him master of the empire. A German valet at Ken sington had sent him a note, bearing a private mark previously agreed upon. The missive reached him while he was out riding. " Without surprise or emotion," says Walpole, " without dropping a word that indicated what had happened, he said his horse was lame, and turned back to Kew. At dismounting he said to his groom : ' I have said this horse was lame ; I forbid you to say to the contrary.' " The young Prince had never been much attached to his grandfather ; sooth to say, few people were, save that inscrutable woman whom he had the good fortune to make his wife. The funeral of George II. is described by Wal pole, who attended it for the sake ofthe spectacle, and who seems to have derived a degree of genuine enjoyment from it, not often experienced by the attendants at such ceremonies. "The Prince's chamber," he says, "hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver, VOL. III. C 18 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. on high stands, had a very good effect. The pro cession, through a line of footguards, every seventh man bearing a torch — the horseguards lining the outsides — their officers, with drawn sabres and crape sashes, on horseback— the drums muffled — the fifes — bells tolling — and minute guns — all this was very solemn." This, however, was not the most striking part of the pageant. " The charm," says Horace, " was the entrance to the Abbey, where we were received by the Dean and Chapter in rich robes, the choir and almoners bearing torches ; the whole Abbey so illuminated that one saw it to greater advantage than by day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest chiaro oscuro. There wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct ; yet one could not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in dread of being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry VII. all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would, the yeomen of the guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin ; the bishops read sadly, and blundered in the prayers. The fine chapter, Man that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read ; and the anthem besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland heightened by a thousand melancholy circum stances. He had a dark brown adonis, with a cloak of black cloth, and a train of five yards. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 19 Attending the funeral of a father could not be jple&sant ; his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours ; his face bloated and dis turbed with his first paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes ; and placed over the mouth ofthe vault, into which, in all probability, he must himself soon descend: think how un pleasant a situation. He bore it all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back into a stall, the Archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle ; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better, of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass, to spy who was or who was not there, spying with one hand and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland^ who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatrical to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the chamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King's order." The young King, called to the throne at the early age of twenty-two, had already gained popularity by his sterling worth and unaffected simplicity and kindliness. The seclusion in which he had grown up had made him reserved and somewhat timid in large assemblies; and the tutors who had superintended his education had not' succeeded in instilling a large amount of knowledge. Neither Dr. Ayscough or Dr. Thomas were the most competent men for a post of such 20 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. responsibility, and the result of their labours was insignificant. His mother said the masters were indifferent, and the boy was slow ; but under more able tuition he would probably have become a more cultivated and intelligent man than the kindly " Farmer George " of later days. The public discrimination, however, dazzled by the divinity ever hedging the new monarch, and looking for ward with relief to an era of greater purity and morality than had prevailed under the sway of George II., saw no flaw in the young sovereign, who rivetted all hearts by his happy declaration that it was his greatest pride to be Briton-born. People rushed into verse on so promising a subject without delay ; and the subjoined specimen, from the pen of Lady Irwin, will give a fair sample of the style, and prove that the abundant use of italics is an idiosyncrasy not entirely monopolised by Miss Rhoda Broughton and her numerous followers : — If ardent wishes — can prevail, If highest merit — can avail, George no distress will know ! If graceful form and blooming youth, H candour, innocence, and truth, Can happiness bestow. But perfect bliss is never given On earth — 'tis only found in. heaven; Late may he that obtain, Long may he bless his native land, Cause war to cease at his command — No wishes else remain ! Most gracious Prince, the world expects To see you roid of all defects, Your heart with truth replete ; Tour task is arduous I own, But you're unaltered by a throne, And are as good as great. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 21 Proceed to act as you've begun, Tour influence like the enlivening sun Will virtue's cause support. Vices like snow will melt away, When Phoebus darts his powerful ray, And fly from such a Court. This, for . the benefit of the uninitiated it may be explained, was in those days counted as poetry. One of George's greatest gifts was his dignified and graceful manner of reading his speeches and ¦addresses — a quality in which his descendant, our gracious Queen, closely resembles him. When, for the first time after his accession, he opened Parliament, and addressed his lieges, the old actor Quin, remembering the lessons he had in bygone days given to the young heir, cried out in triumph, " Ay ! 'twas I taught that boy to speak." Naturally, one of the first things thought of at the commencement of the new reign was the possible and as yet problematical Queen. Young as he was, there had been already much talk on the subject of the King's marriage, even before his accession. His mother and her adviser, Lord Bute, wished him to marry a Princess of Saxe- Gotha ; but besides there being " a constitutional infirmity in that family which rendered an alliance with it in no way desirable,"* George II., who was then living, politely remarked that he had had enough of that family already. He had been ;anxious his grandson should marry a Princess of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, whom he had seen in Hanover; but the Prince, at his mother's instiga tion, declined the alliance in terms so decisive as to rouse the indignation of the gallant monarch. " Oh," he cried to Lord Waldegrave, " oh, that I * Dr. Doran. 22 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. were but a score of years younger, this young lady should not then have been exposed to the indignity of being refused by the Prince of Wales, for I would then myself have made her Queen of Eng land ! " Failing this project, the old King would have liked to unite his heir to a Princess of Prussia —a scheme to which the Princess Dowager was strongly opposed, and which was never realized. But while all these designs were in agitation con cerning him, the young Prince seemed in a fair way of taking the matter into his own hands, and choosing for himself. The object of his youthful fancy was Lady Sarah Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, young, lovely, and prepossess sing. " She had," says Henry Fox, " a peculiarity of countenance that made her at the same time different from, and prettier than, any other girl I ever saw." George had first seen her making hay before the windows of Holland House, and had ' been fascinated by her fresh young beauty. All the world began to gossip of the royal heir and the high-born damsel, and Mr. Fox,, subsequently Lord Holland, was- credited with doing his best to promote the possible union. When the Prince of Wales became George III., the fascinations of Lady Sarah were not forgotten ; and it really seemed as if the crown matrimonial of England were hovering over the brow of one of England's fairest daughters. " There will be no coronation," said the King at a Court ball to Lady Susan Strangeways, one of the beauty's most intimate friends, " until there is a Queen, and I think your friend is the fittest person for it ; tell her so from me." The royal words were duly re ported, and the next time the principal actors in the little drama met, George asked Lady Sarah if she had been told what he had said. She an- AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 23 swered " Yes," and was asked what she thought of it ; to which, being perhaps rather thrown off her balance by such a conversation, she answered " Nothing, sir ! " But others did not take so negative a view of the position, and rumour spread far and wide the possibility of an English-born Queen on the English throne. " Let me go in before you," said the lovely Lady Barrington, whose strong point was the beauty of her shoulders, as they entered the presence-chamber, " for you will never have another opportunity of seeing my beautiful back." But the little romance was not to end in so dazzling a manner as society anticipated. Whether the young King himself began to consider that an alliance with a subject was beneath his dignity, or whether his advisers thought so for him, and flung obstacles in the way of his wishes, cannot be told; but on the 8th of July, 1761, George announced to his council that " having nothing so much at heart as the welfare and happiness of his people, and that to render the same stable and permanent to posterity being the first object of his reign, he had ever since his accession to the throne turned his thoughts to the choice of a Princess with whom he might find the solace of matrimony and the comforts of domestic life ; he had to announce to them, therefore, with great satis faction that, after the most mature reflection and fullest information, he had come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh-Strelitz, a Princess distinguished by every amiable virtue and elegant endowment, whose illustrious line had continually shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion, and a par ticular attachment to his Majesty's family." This resolution is said to have been taken by 24 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. the young sovereign after reading a letter ad dressed by the above-named Princess to the King of Prussia, on the invasion of Mecklenburg- Strelitz by the Prussian army. How George came to see it is uncertain ; either the Prussian monarch forwarded it to him, or his mother laid it before him ; but the effect was striking, and, considering his recent very marked attentions to Lady Sarah, not a little surprising. " This is the lady," he exclaimed to Lord Hertford, after reading the letter, " whom I shall select for my consort — here are lasting beauties — the man who has any mind may feast and not be satisfied. If the dis position of the Princess but equals her refined sense, I shall be the happiest man, as I hope, with my people's concurrence, to be the greatest monarch in Europe." Lord Hardwicke was sent to ask the hand of the much-eulogised lady ; and Lady Sarah was left in the position of the forlorn maiden whose knight "loved and rode away." "Does not your choler rise," she wrote to Lady Susan Strangeways, apropos of the coming marriage, " at hearing this ? 1 shall take care to show that I am not mortified to anybody ; but if it is true that one can vex anybody with a cold, reserved manner, he shall have it, I promise him." She goes on to say that " the disappointment affected her only for an hour or two," and adds, "if he were to change his mind again (which can't be, tho'), and not give a very, very good reason for his conduct, I would not have him. We are to act a play and have a little ball," con tinues the high-spirited young lady, " to show that we are not so melancholy quite ! " This play was witnessed by Horace Walpole, who has left a graphic account of the enchantress whose beauty AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 25 so nearly won her a crown : — "There was a play at Holland House, acted by children ; not all -children, for Lady Sarah Lennox .and Lady Susan Strangeways played the women. It was ' Jane Shore.' Charles Fox was Hastings. The two girls were delighted, and acted with so much nature that they appeared the very things they represented. Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive ; and her very awkwardness gave an air of truth to the sham of the part, and the antiquity of the time, kept up by her dress, which was taken out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour. I was more struck with the last scene between the two women than ever I was when I have seen it on the stage. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen of Correggio was half so lovely and expressive." Meanwhile the future Queen was on her way to throne and bridegroom. She had a long and stormy voyage, lasting from the 22nd of August to the 6th of September, when the royal yacht anchored off Harwich. In those days of slow communication, there was great uncertainty in London as to the whereabouts of the bride. " Last night, at ten o'clock," says Walpole, writing on Tuesday, the 8th, " it was neither certain when she landed nor when she would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even at this very moment in St. James's Street. This messenger who brought the letter yesterday morning said she arrived at half an hour after four, at Harwich. This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the Ministers. Six hours after- 26 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. wards it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich Roads; and they recollected that half an hour after four happens twice in twenty- four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well, the bridesmaids whipped on their virginity ; the New Road and the parks were thronged ; the guns were choking with im patience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty, was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart. Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and no Queen." It was not till the afternoon of Tuesday that the royal carriages, the last of which contained the bride, were seen entering London. Charlotte was dressed, the chroniclers of the day inform us, " entirely in the English taste," which taste consisted in " a fly-cap with rich lace lappets, a stomacher ornamented with diamonds, and a gold brocade suit of clothes with a white ground." " She was much amused," writes Mrs. Stuart, daughter-in-law of Lord Bute, " at the crowds of people assembled to see her, and bowed as she passed. She was hideously dressed in a blue satin quilted Jesuit, her hair twisted up into knots ¦ called a tete de mouton; and the strangest little blue coif at the top. She had a great jewel like a Sevigne, and earrings like those now worn, with many drops, a present from the Empress of Russia, who knew of her marriage before she did herself." Passing through Mile End and Whitechapel, the royal train continued its course along Oxford Street towards Hyde Park. As they came to Constitution Hill, one of the ladies of the suite, looking at her watch, remarked, "We shall hardly have time to dress for the wedding." " Wedding ! " cried the bride. " Yes, madam, it is to be at twelve." Charlotte, whose fortitude AUGUSTA OF, SAXE-GOTHA. 27" was only prepared for the sight of the bride groom and his family, and who had not realized that the ceremony was to be solemnized at once, fainted; and it must be confessed that the ordeal was a sufficiently trying one for a girl of seventeen. For the first time her cheerfulness and courage seemed to fail her. The Duchess of Hamilton — the younger of the beautiful Gunnings, who now for the second time bore ducal rank — smiled at her alarm ; and Charlotte, per ceiving it, said, "My dear Duchess, you may laugh — you have been married twice ; but its no, joke to me." At length the carriage drew up before the garden gate of St. James's, where twenty-five years previously Augusta herself, at the same age, had alighted, as her daughter-in-law elect did now, a stranger bride, with the ordeal of the introductions to her future relatives before her. Very pale, but tolerably self-possessed, Charlotte stepped out, and came into the presence of her future lord. " A crimson cushion was laid for her to kneel upon, and (Mrs. Stuart tells us) mistaking the hideous old Duke of Grafton for the King, as the cushion inclined that way, she was very near prostrating herself before the Duke ; but the King caught her in his arms first, and all but carried her upstairs, forbidding anyone to enter." * She was then introduced to the Princess Dowager, the Lady Augusta, and the other members of the royal family, with whom she dined. After dinner the bridesmaids and the Court were presented to her, and their number and magnificence impressed her greatly. " Mon Dieu ! " she cried, " il y en a tant, il y en a tant ! " She gladly kissed the Princesses, the King's. * Dr. Doranj 28 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. sisters, but was so gracefully shy when she should have given her own hand to be kissed that the Lady Augusta was obliged to take it and present it to those who were to salute her, " which," says Walpole, " was prettily humble and good-natured." At seven tbe chapel began to fill rapidly with spectators of the coming ceremony, and at nine the King, the bride, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and her children entered. The Duke of York, says Lady Anne Hamilton, " used every endeavour to support his royal brother through the trying ordeal, not only by first meeting the Princess on her entrance into the garden, but • also at the altar." Charlotte was dressed in white and silver, which was surmounted by " an endless mantle of violet coloured velvet, lined with crimson, which," says Walpole, " attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost all the rest of her clothes half-way down her waist." Among her bridesmaids was one who, but a few months ago, might not unreasonably have hoped to occupy the centre place in the assembly — Lady Sarah Lennox ; and it was noticed that the King kept his eyes fixed upon her during nearly the whole time the marriage was proceeding. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Seeker) officiated, and the Duke of Cumberland gave away this bride, as he had done the mother of the bridegroom. When the rite was concluded, the King and Queen seated themselves on two chairs of state, under a canopy, on the same side of the altar, the Princess Dowager occupying a similar seat on the opposite side, the rest of the royal family sitting on stools, and the foreign ministers on benches. At half- past ten the illustrious company left the chapel, and heard, as they re-entered the palace, the AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 29' booming of the guns of Park and Tower. " Can it be possible," asked Charlotte, "that I am worthy of such honours ? " She did not allow her shyness to render her either silent or awkward. While waiting for the splendid state supper she sat down, played, and sung, and talked in French and German to the King, and the Dukes of Cumberland and York. The banquet that followed was very splendid and wearily long. It was two o'clock in the morning before she finally retired, after a day of such fatigue as, says Mrs. Scott, " only a German constitution could have stood." The next day she held her first drawing-room, and in the* evening a ball was given, opened by the Lady Augusta and her brother, Edward, Duke of York. On the 11th their Majesties went " in chairs " to Drury Lane, to see Garrick in the " Rehearsal," and the public curiosity to see the young Queen was so great that the house was crammed from floor to ceiling, " and we may venture to say," declares the St. James's Chronicle, "that there were people enough to have filled fifty such houses. There was a prodigious deal of mischief done at the doors of the house ; several genteel women, who were imprudent enough to attempt to get in, had their clothes, caps, aprons, hand kerchiefs, all torn off them." But the pageant to which everyone was looking forward with eagerness was the coronation. Thirty-four years had elapsed since there had been such a show, and most people agreed with the candid lady Who naively remarked to George II. that "of all things she most wished to see a coronation." Extensive preparations were made, and the owners of Sedan chairs took the opportunity of extorting double and treble fares, under a threat of striking 30 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. altogether if their proposals were not agreed to. The Dean and Chapter — with reverence be it spoken — were not very much better than the doughty Knights of the Chair ; for they demanded five guineas a foot for all the space taken up in scaffolding. The procession of the King and Queen was as imposing as all the adjuncts of royal pomp could make it; but that of the Princess-mother, infinitely simpler, was perhaps quite as pleasing. Led by the hand of her son William, the young Duke of Gloucester, she passed from the House of Lords across Old Palace Yard, on a platform specially erected for her, to * the south cross of the Abbey, where a box had been reserved for her. Augusta, and all who accompanied her, were picturesquely dressed in white and silver, and she "wore a short silk train, and was consequently relieved from the nuisance of being pulled back by train bearers. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders in hanging curls, and the only ornament upon her head was a simple wreath of diamonds. She was the best dressed and perhaps not the least h'appy of the persons present."* A peculiar addition to her procession was three Turkish Ambassadors, dressed in national costume, who for some un explained reason did not accompany their confreres of other countries. The Princess of Wales was much commiserated by the people for her sup posed loss of precedence ; but, had she been Queen Dowager, her added dignity could not have given her greater influence over her son, or a firmer hold on his affections. The King and Queen having arrived at the Abbey, and having been saluted by the West minster boys with " Vivat Rex " and " Vivat * Dr. Doran. AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 31 "Regina," engaged for a time in private devotion, were presented to the people, and heard a sermon, lasting exactly a 'quarter of an hour, preached by Archbishop Seeker, who took for his text 1 Kings x, 9 : " Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice." Then the coronation of" the young sovereigns was solemnly performed, and they were to receive the sacrament; but the King desired "that he might first put aside his crown, and appear humbly at the table of the Lord. There was no precedent for such a case, and all the prelates present were somewhat puzzled, lest they might commit themselves. Ultimately, and wisely, they expressed an opinion that, despite the lack of authorising precedent, the King's wishes might be complied with. A similar wish was expressed by Queen Charlotte ; but this could not so readily be fulfilled. It was found that the little crown fixed on the Queen's head was so fastened, to keep it from falling, that there would be some trouble in getting it off without the assistance of the Queen's dressers. This was dispensed with, and the crown was worn by the Queen ; but the King declared that in this case it was to be considered simply as part of her dress, and not as indicating any power or greatness residing in a person humbly kneeling in the presence of God."* The rest of the ceremonial occupied so long that it was dusk before the royal pair left the Abbey, and returned to the Hall, where the banquet was to be held, and where the champion of England, mounted on the gallant grey that had borne George II. at Dettingen awaited their advent to make his defiance. " The instant the Queen's canopy entered the Hall," says Grey, " fire was * Dr. Doran. 32 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. given to all the lustres at once by trains of pre pared flax that reached from one to the other. To me it seemed an interval of not half a minute before the whole was in a blaze of splendour. . . and the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld remained. The King, bowing to the lords as he passed, with his crown on his head and the sceptre and orb in his hands, took his place with great majesty and grace. So did the Queen, with her crown, sceptre, and rod. Their supper was served on gold plate. The Earl Talbot, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Effingham, in their robes, all three on horseback, prancing and curvetting like the hobby horses in the ' Rehearsal,' ushered in the courses to the foot of the hautpas. Between the courses the champion performed his part with applause." A grand ball at Court succeeded the coronation, at which the royal bridesmaids wore the white bodied coats in which they had appeared at the wedding, but the young King and Queen, tired out, pro bably, with all the splendour, retired at eleven o'clock. A few days later Walpole wrote to George Montagu a long and graphic account of the coro nation and all its attendant pomp. " All the wines of Bordeaux," he says, " and all the fumes of Irish brains cannot make a town so drunk as a royal wedding and a coronation. I am going to let London cool, and will not venture into it again this fortnight. Oh, the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the noise, the hurry ! Nay, people are so little come to their senses, that, though the coro nation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke of Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, de siring admissions for a ball that they fancied was to be at Court last night. People had sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance ! If I was to entitle ages, I would call this ' th& AUGUSTA OF SAXE-GOTHA. 33 century of crowds.' For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions made Palace Yard the liveliest spectacle in the world, the hall was most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the cere monial, the bunches of peers and peeresses, were as awful as a pageant can be ; and yet, for the King's sake and my own, I never wish to see another ; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham's promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept of their proceedings. Lord Effingham vowed the Earl-Marshal's office had been strangely neglected, but he had taken such care for the future that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great ; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln's gallery, and even walked about the Hall indecently in the intervals ofthe procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance. She complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig and a stick. ' Pho ! ' said he, 'you will only look as if you were taken up by the constable.' She told this everywhere, thinking that the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth ! Lady Pembroke alone, at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty. The Duchess of Richmond, as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of her own, could make her. Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. VOL. III. D 34 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. The ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party. Lady Westmoreland still handsome, and with more dignity than all. The Duchess of Queensberry looked well, though her locks are milk-white. Lady Albemarle very genteel ; nay, the middle age had some good representatives in Lady Holdernesse, Lady .Rochford, and Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord Hertford's could mention something about not receiving proper CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 225 information from Princess Charlotte, if it should continue still the silence. The climate is beautiful, but no real society. The King and Queen by far the most agreeable in the country, which I enjoy much. My best love to Lady Glenbervie, and my Lord and Lady Charlotte Campbell, and take for yourself my best and good wishes, and believe me for ever yours, "C. P." Her next act was to purchase a villa on the Lake of Como, whither she repaired, and where her imprudence and folly did not abate. She corresponded with Murat, who addressed her as "Ma chere, chere soeur," as if she already bore queenly honours, and whom she answered in a letter whose clever flippancy and extraordinary wildness are calculated to raise doubts how far the unlucky lady was accountable for her eccentricities. Bergami was raised to the dignity of chamberlain, with the privilege of a seat at her table. She asserted her right to bestow honours on any whom she wished to distinguish, but these rewards were so frequently and foolishly bestowed, that it almost seemed as if she were anxious to alienate her warmest friends by the display of her utter want of justice and common-sense. Prudence she had never had; but now she seemed to take delight in flinging off all the mild restraints which her trustworthy counsellors in England had suc ceeded in persuading her to observe. One day, when talking more unguardedly than usual, a friend hinted that it would be well to use greater reserve, as she was surrounded by spies, and all her observations would be reported at Carlton House within a fortnight. " I know it," she answered recklessly ; " and therefore I do speak and act as VOL. III. Q 226 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. you hear and see. The wasp leaves his .'sting in the wound, and so do I. The Regent will hear it ? I hope he will ; I love to mortify him." And to gratify this truly feminine propensity, she talked in so unrestrained a manner that the spies who dogged her had an ample budget to unfold to the expectant husband in England. From Como she passed to Palermo, where she was well received, and from thence she was con veyed, in the Clorinda frigate to Genoa, where she took up her residence in one of the old palaces, of which a lady who came to pay her respects gives the following account: — "It is composed of red and white marble. Two large gardens, in the dressed formal style, extend some way on either side of the wings of the building, and conduct to the principal entrance by a rising terrace of grass, ill-kept indeed, but which in careful hands would be beautiful. The hall and staircase are of fine dimensions, although there is no beauty in the architecture, which is plain even to heaviness; but a look of lavish magnificence dazzles the eyes. The large apartments, decorated with gilding, painted ceilings, and fine, though somewhat faded, furniture, have a very royal appearance. The doors and windows open to a beautiful view of the bay, and the balmy air they admit combines with the scene around to captivate the senses. I should think this palace, the climate, and the customs must suit the Princess, if anything can suit her. Poor woman ! she is ill at peace with herself ; and when that is the case what can please. . . . The Princess received me in one of the drawing- rooms opening on the hanging terraces, covered with flowers in full bloom. Her Royal Highness. received Lady Charlotte Campbell (who came in soon after me) with open arms and evident CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. , 227 pleasure, and without any flurry. She had no rings on, wore tidy shoes, was grown ratherthinner, and looked altogether uncommonly well. The first person who opened the door to me was the one whom it was impossible to mistake, hearing what is reported — six feet high, a magnificent head of black hair, pale complexion, mustachios which" reach from here to London'. Such is the stork. Hut, of course, I only appeared to take him for an under-servant. The Princess immediately took me aside and told me all that was true, and a great deal that was not. . . Her Royal Highness said that Gell and Craven had behaved very ill to her, and I am tempted to believe that they did not behave well ; but then how did she behave towards them ? . . It made me tremble to think what anger could in duce a woman to do, when she abused three of her best friends for their cavalier manner of treat ing her. . . . ' Well, when I left Naples, you see, my dear,' continued the Princess, 'those gentlemen refused to go with me, unless I : re turned immediately to England. They supposed I should be so miserable without them that -I should do anything they desired mei and when they found I was too glad to get rid of 'em (as she called it) they wrote the most humble letters, and thought I would take them back again, whereas they were very much mistaken. I had got rid of them, and I would remain so.' " Her passion for astonishing and shocking her hearers remained as strong as ever, despite her friends' remonstrances. Lady Charlotte Campbell gives an instance of this foolish propensity in her " Diary." " Sometimes Monsieur — opened his eyes wide at the Princess's declarations, and her Royal Highness enjoys mak ing people stare, so she gives free vent to her tongue, and said a number of odd things, some of 228 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. which she thinks, and some she does not ; but it amuses her to astonish an innocent-minded being, and really such did this old man appear to be. He won her heart, upon the whole, by paying a com pliment to her fine arm and asking for her glove. Obtaining it, he placed it next his heart ; and, de claring it should be found in his tomb, he swore he was of the old school in all things." Caroline seemed indeed to take an almost insane delight in saying or doing anything which could cause scandal, and her folly reached its height when she adopted Victorine, Bergami's daughter, utterly for getful or unheeding of the discussion caused by her former adoption of young Austin. Throughout the year 1815, she was perpetually moving from place to place, and by her reckless conduct and conversation, giving a semblance of truth to the scandals which the well-trained spies of the Regent were continually sending to their master. " She was now entirely surrounded by Italians. Mr St. Leger refused to be of her house hold, nor would he allow his daughter to be of it. Many others were applied to, but with similar success. Sir Humphrey and Lady Davy also de clined the honour offered them. Mr. William Rose, Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Hartup, pleaded other engagements. Dr. Holland, Mr. North, and Mr Falconet were no longer with her. Lord Malpas begged to be excused, and Lady Charlotte Campbell withdrew, after her Royal Highness's second arrival at Milan. The Princess, however, had no difficulty in forming an Italian Court. Some of her appointments were unexceptionable. Such were those of Dr. Machetti, her physician, and the Chevalier Chiavini, her first equerry. Many of the Italian nobility now took the place of former English visitors at her ' Court,' and two of the CAROLINE .OF BRUNSWICK. 229 brothers of Bergami held respectable offices in her household, while the Countess of Oldi, sister of the chamberlain, was appointed sole lady of honour to the lady, her mistress." * In the autumn she returned to Genoa, whence she wrote the fol lowing letter to Lady Charlotte Lindsay : — . "Ce 5 Octobre, 1815. "J'ai enfin cinq de vos lettres toutes.^, la fois, ma chere Lady Charlotte. Je suis justement sur le point pour m'embarquer a Genes, pour me rendre en Sicile et dans les iles Ioniennes. Au mois de Fevrier je me propose d'etre de retour ici dans ma petite coquille. Je desire beaucoup d'eviter les empereurs et le couronnement, qui dit on doit se faire a Milan au mois de Novembre. Vous serez bien etonnee d' apprendre que Lord A. Hamilton vient justement de quitter ma chambre. II va se rendre a Florence, pour revoir son ancienne flamme, Lady Oxford. Ainsi va le monde ! Lady John Campbell vient aussi d'arriver ici, et a eu l'imprudence de vouloir me rendre visite, ce que j'ai absolument refuse. La mort du cher Mr. Whitbread m 'a beaucoup etonne. Un homme si religieux et pieux perir par un tel catastrophe ! Mais je me rapelle un certain jdur a Connaught House, Mr Brougham arriva bien vite chez moi, pour faire une lettre pour un bien grand person- nage, parce que le bon Whitbread avait fait une -confusion tres-forte, ce qui nous fite partir si tard pour Worthing. Je suis sure que vous avez pense ¦de ce jour plus d'une fois. H est actuellement bien ;heureux que j'ai quitte cet enfer, car n'ayant plus d'amis si zeles au parlement, mes affaires y sont encore plus mal. Au lieu de me dire qu' au retour du Due de Cumberland a Londres, il n'a rien fait * Dr. Doran. 230 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. a Connaught House que de confer toute la histoire de l'Allemagne pendant mon dernier sejour dans cette ville ; mais un mensonge de plus ou de moins est de tres peu de consequence. Assurez Mr. Brougham que je ne retourne jamais en Angleterre excepte quand le Due on le Grand-due serait mort, et que la jeune fille desire bien ardemment de me revoir ! Sans cela, jamais ! c'est que je com mence a craindre c'est que de tels evenements heureux ne pourraient arriver. "J'ai eu aussi une des tres-longues lettres et fort stupides de Mme Beauclerc ; ayez la bonte d'y repondre, et de lui assurer que les Hollands et tous meme pourraient donner de tres-bonnes nouvelles de ma sant6 et de mon contentement. J'apprends que Lady Glenbervie est beaucoup mieux en sante, ce qui me fait .bien plaisir d'avoir dans mon pouvoir de vous donner cette agreable nouvelle. — Au reste, croyez-moi pour la vie votre plus sincere et affectionnee amie, " C. P. " La famille royale n'a nullement pris egard a la mort de mon frere; il n'y a que ma fille. La Princesse Sophie de Gloucester, j'ai cru m'aurait ecrit un mot par bon cceur, et le due son frere par politesse; mais ni' l'un ni' l'autre. Ainsi. va le monde ! Aussi, je suis bien resolu de ne jamais plus leur ecrire ni meme leur repondre, si jamais encore ils prennent fantaisie d'ecrire. J'ai vu un soir a l'opera a Como M. et Mme. Orde. Ils restent tout l'hiver a Florence avec les Oxfords. Le Professeur Monchiti [Machetti], medecin tres- celebre, et un homme tres-aimable pour la societe, naturel et fort instruit sur toutes les differentes branches de science, l "m'accompagne dans mon voyage. J'ai demande la permission au Gouverne- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 231 ment, et ils m'ont accorde pour six mois son absence. Un autre professeur, tres-instruit sur les arts et sciences, qui parle aussi toutes les langues comme le francais, est un homme fort aimable pour la societe, et un certain Chevalier Montichelli, qui chant et peint a merveille, et fort gai et de bonne humeur, est aussi de la partie. Le dermier res- semble beaucoup par l'esprit et la figure a Mr. John M'Adam, et le reste sont les personnes de ma famille. Je me fais un plaisir de vous donner un detail de tout mon voyage, qui sera cnrieux, in- structif, et amusant en meme temps. Tout le monde sont amis et se connaissait bien sans la moindre jalousie l'un pour l'autre ! C'est une chose bien rare, je crois, mais cependant notre voyage sera pour tant compose" de tels messieurs. Ayez la bonte de m'ecrire a Palermo, ou je compte rester quelques jours." Early in January she set out in the Clorinde for Syracuse, and arrived after a rough voyage and a quarrel with the captain, who, having previously seen Bergami occupying the position of her courier, refused to give him a seat at his table when he entertained the Princess — a slight she resented by refusing to appear. For some weeks she remained in Sicily, and it was during her sojourn there that the news arrived of the Princess Charlotte's approaching marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Caroline heartily approved of the bridegroom, but did not manifest as much interest in the coming wedding of her only child as might have been looked for. Her wandering, unguided life, had not been without its effects on her char acter ; and, in striving to find forgetfulness of her wrongs and miseries, as none could blame her for doing, she seemed, in some degree, to have re- 232 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. linquished the warmth and devotion of her affections for her daughter. Untaught and un influenced as she had been since her childhood, she is, poor thing, little to be censured if the troubles which, to a more disciplined mind, might have proveda means of strengthening and elevating the character, proved to her only a source of bitter ness and recklessness, and rendered her more callous to what did not immediately concern her. To the bride- elect herself, however, the engage ment gave all that she had longed for for years — strength, love, and counsel; and all the little defects of her really noble character rapidly vanished under the influence of Leopold's tender guidance. " Her happiness was as great," says Lady Rose Weigall, " as her former misery had been extreme ; in the place of coercion, indulgence ; instead of loneliness and suspicion, sympathy and confidence in their fullest measure ; the society of all the old friends she loved, and as many fresh associates as talents and goodness could recom mend to her." Her happiness is touchingly shown in her letter to Lady Charlotte Lindsay, a few weeks before her marriage. "Cranbourne Lodge, March 19th, 1816. "Mt Dear Lady Charlotte Lindsav, " I hasten, with much pleasure, to thank you for the kind letter you have written to me, dated the 16th, on the occasion of my approaching marriage. Tou must allow me to call you (and as such to put you upon the footing of) an old friend. Tou may believe, therefore, that I was glad to receive your letter, and pleased with its contents. "As you have known me long, you will believe me when I assure you that this has been a long- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 233 vvished-for event by me, that it is really a union of inclination, and which makes me very happy. "In two points of view I am quite convinced that it is the best possible thing for this country {a subject I am ever alive to) : first, in respect to its securing my private and domestic comfort; secondly, as to the Prince of Coburg's relations and connections abroad, and his situation of a younger brother. Painful as the fact has been, yet I confess the retrospect does but enhance the value of the present good obtained, and makes me the more grateful for it, and thankful for the escape I made. I can with truth say that not one hour of my life have I ever regretted the line I took on a former occasion. " Nothing you can utter in the Prince of Coburg's praise is too much ; . . . . indeed, he deserves all possible praise and admiration ; for his is not an easy task, situation, or game to play. The more he is known, the more, I am sure, this country will be inclined to confide much in him, as he has a head, a heart, and abilities of no common sort — indeed, I may add, that fall to few mortals. " His attachment is certainly entirely personal towards me, and not from my situation. It began at a time when he felt he had little or no chance. I am therefore most singularly fortunate — cer tainly no princess or prince before me ever having been able, I believe, to form a matrimonial alliance from inclination. " I am sure you will have been delighted, as I was, at the manner in which the question, etc., went off in the House ; and as I feel Opposition acted handsomely, and made their allowance too liberal, it will be my anxious wish and study to prove myself worthy and grateful to my country .and its representatives for all they have said and 234 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. done for me, by setting a moral and well-principled" example before them — an example they have long stood in need of; the importance of which no one is better aware than yourself. " Tou did quite right in introducing your brother and Miss Hayman to the .... "I shall not delay writing to that excellent creature, whose letter is worth anything to me, from its natural and undisguised feelings of warm and real affectionate interest about me. " I trust you have been quite well ; pray re member me to all those of your family to whom I am personally known, and assure them of my con tinued regard. As to yourself, dear Lady Charlotte Lindsay, believe me ever to be yours most sincerely and truly, " Charlotte." The marriage took place on the 2nd of May,. and the poor young Princess understood, for the first time in her life, what domestic happiness meant. Her love for her husband was absorbing, and he had unbounded influence over her. " Her old friends were both touched and amused," says Lady Rose Weigall, " by the instant change which was wrought in her by the affectionate influence of her husband. Her little roughnesses were quieted down, and her vehement expressions of likes and dislikes needed nothing to restrain them beyond a gentle reproving look or word. Leopold at that time spoke English imperfectly ; they usually talked French together, and when her tongue or her high spirits were carrying her beyond the bounds of dignity or prudence, she would be checked by his ' Doucement, ma chere, doucement.' Thus she playfully called him 'Douce ment,' acted on his advice, and thought of nothing CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 235 but pleasing him, and showing her gratitude for the happiness he had brought her. He, on his part, felt the joyous influence of a sunny dis position, and warm and lively heart, on his own melancholy temperament. Her buoyancy and hilarity were just what he needed ; and the con trasted peculiarities of each were of the kind which blend in softest harmony." Like a very woman, she was anxious that he should be the principal and master in all respects ; and, forget ting all her anxieties for the due recognition of her rights and dignities which she had displayed on a former occasion, delighted in signing herself "Charlotte Cobourg," and insisted on the Cobourg livery being adopted in her household, "as if anxious to proclaim that she was prouder of being Leopold's wife than of her great inheritance."*" " I know you have always loved me," she writes to one of her dearest friends, " and I know how much too, and that you were very anxious for this marriage, which, as it makes my whole happiness, I shall never forget, and always love you all the better for." " In this house," writes Baron Stokmar, from Claremont, on October 17th, 1816, "reign har mony, peace, and love — in short, everything that can promote domestic happiness. My master is the best of husbands in all the five quarters of the globe ; and his wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only be compared with the English National Debt." Again, on August 26th, 1817, the same observer says — " The married life of this couple affords a rare picture of love and fidelity, and never fails to impress all spectators who have managed to pre serve a particle of feeling." * Lady Rose Weigall. 236 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. What an infinite blessing this life of love and happiness must have been to Charlotte, after her lonely and miserable girlhood, it is almost im possible to realize ; but we catch a glimpse of her wealth of gratitude and unswerving affection to the husband who had been so good to her in her loving assurance to him that she was "the happiest wife in England," uttered in the brief space left her after her child's birth, and one of the last things she said. While the young wife was thus in the flush of her bridal happiness, only marred by the thought of her absent mother, that mother was wandering about in a vain search for forgetfulness and peace. Her surroundings were not creditable to her dignity or good sense. " At a small place called Borgo St. Domino," writes a traveller, "three days' journey from hence, what was my surprise to come up to a whole rabble rout belonging to the Princess of Wales. This consisted of twenty-four persons in all. There were seven piebald horses, and two little cream-coloured ponies, and two very fine horses that drew a chariot, which was entirely covered up. They were evidently a low set of people. Many of the women were dressed up like itinerant show players, and altogether looked quite unfit to be her attendants. I did not see any person that I mistook for a gentleman ; but my maids told me that they saw several men dressed in uniform and swords, who looked like pages." On the 26th of March the Princess embarked with her suite in the " Royal Charlotte," and sailed for Tunis, which was reached after a stormy voyage. Here she was courteously received by the Bey, who lodged her in his palace, showed her his seraglio, and caused his female band to play before her— a troupe of six women, all over three-score, each CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 237 labouring under some personal defect, and none with the slightest knowledge of music. In return for his hospitality, she purchased the freedom of several European slaves — an act both wise and noble ; and then, after a brief visit to the sites of Utica and Carthage, set sail for the Piraeus, which she reached with much difficulty, in May, and from whence she journeyed to Athens, where she resided at the French Consulate, and saw all the sights that could be shown her — including an exhibition of dancing dervishes, whose performance seems to have been too much even for her not over-fastidi ous nerves — and expressed her gratitude for Athe nian courtesy by liberating three hundred im prisoned debtors — a good deed, the fame of which preceded her to Corinth, where she was splendidly entertained for two days, ere she passed on to the world-famous plain where once was Troy, and twice crossed the Scamander. On the 1st of June she entered Constantinople, in the springless cart of the country, drawn by a couple of bulls, and took up her residence in the British Embassy — the last time during her travels that she reposed beneath the British flag. The plague being then however prevalent in the city, she removed to a distance of fifteen miles, and amused herself by making excursions on the Black Sea. Before long she had wearied of her solitude, put to sea in a small vessel, visited Scio, and by the last week of June had reached Ephesus, where she pitched her tent under the vestibule of an ancient church, and spent some gaspingly hot days and hotter nights amidst those scenes of departed splendour ere she travelled to Jaffa, on her way to Jerusalem, which was the object of her dreams. At Jaffa they were detained on account of having no written permit from the Padishah to visit the 238 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Holy City, and the Pasha declared he could not allow more than five to proceed there ; but after some negotiations and delay consent was given, and the cavalcade, nearly thirty persons, with horses, mules, tents, guides, and baggage, set out, and "roughed" the journey to such an extent that more than once the Princess fairly rolled out of her saddle with fatigue. The heat was very great, and the way long and weary, but Caroline bore all inconveniences bravely — far better than her suite; and on the 12th of July they finally entered Jerusalem, where the Capuchin friars received her cordially, and allowed her, and some of her attendants to sleep within their precincts. It was while she was resting here that she became eager to found a new order of chivalry, and finally determined to place it under the patronage of St. Caroline. It was urged upon her that no such saint was known to exist ; but, having made up her mind, such trifles were little heeded by the wilful lady. St. Caroline she wished it to be, and St. Caroline it should, be ; and the non-existence of the holy personage in question was a matter of no importance whatever. Having carried her point triumphantly, she created young Austin a knight ofthe newly-founded Order, the Grand Mastership of which she gave to Bergami. The diploma of this extraordinary Order ran as follows :— "By this present (given at Jerusalem, 12th of July, 1816), subscribed by her own hand, her Royal Highness institutes and creates a new Order, to recompense her faithful knights who have had the honour of accompanying her pil grimage to the Holy Land. "2nd. That Colonel B. Bergami, Baron of Fracina, Knight of Malta, and of the Holy Sepulchre, shall be Grand Master of this Order, CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 239 and his children, males as well as females, shall succeed him, and shall have the honour to wear the same Order from generation, for ever." This important affair being settled, and her fatigue having passed away, the Princess was indefatigable in sight-seeing, and " did " all she was told of as unflinchingly as a Yankee globe trotter. Her next move was to Jericho, which the summer heat rendered uninhabitable ; and from thence she retraced her steps to Jaffa, and speedily embarked in the polacca awaiting her, in hope of meeting with refreshing sea-breezes after the glare of the eastern summer. While at sea a grand entertainment was given on St. Bar tholomew's Day, in honour of Bergami, which was hardly concluded before they were overtaken by a storm, which tried their little craft's capabilities to the utmost. In respect of weather, the Prin cess's sea journeys were generally unfortunate; and on this occasion, when they did reach port, their condition was hardly bettered, as the authori ties at Syracuse condemned them to quarantine. As soon as they could escape, Caroline and her train left in an Austrian vessel for Rome ; and after a short and very lively sojourn there, she returned to the Villa d'Este, on the Lake of Como, where she and the Countess Oldi entertained their guests by showing the proficiency they had attained in the culinary art during their rambles, and by private theatricals, in which Caroline took a promi nent part. " There was a fete champetre at the Villa d'Este a short time ago," writes Sir William Gell, " of which I dare say you have heard all the particulars. Mrs. Thompson [the Princess of Wales] must lave looked divine as a Druidical priestess, which was the character ' we ' assumed ! and Le Comte 240 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Alexander Hector von der Otto figured charmingly as a god, to whom all the priests and priestesses- did homage. Willikin was the victim offered to his Druidical Majesty. The Count Alexander generally wears the insignia of the Most Holy Order of St. Caroline, which consists of a cross and a heart tied together with a true lovers' knot, and the English Royal motto encircling the badge r ' Honi soit qui mal y pense.' How far these words are applicable to the case I cannot say ; far be it from me not to take them in the sense they are intended to convey. 'We' go constantly on the lake in ' our ' barge, and are serenaded, and are, as we say, very happy ; but of that I have my doubts. To be serious, I am truly sorry for Mrs. Thompson." All this time the Princess was surrounded by spies in the pay ofthe Regent, and was well aware of the fact, but the knowledge only seemed to increase her recklessness. One of these gentry,. a certain Baron d'Ompteda, was indeed banished from Austrian soil at her request ; but, in general, the conviction that all her proceedings would be shortly communicated to her husband, only seemed to add zest to her follies. She had been so out raged and ill-treated that, whatever she had done,. one could hardly have wondered ; but at the same time her warmest adherents must acknowledge that she showed, during almost the whole of her Continental wanderings, a blameable want of dignity, discretion, and self-respect. In the early part of 1817 she went to Carlsruhe, where, at a hunting party given in her honour, by the Grand Duke of Baden, she appeared on horseback with half a pumpkin on her head, and, on an ex pression of astonishment at the remarkable coiffure, observed calmly that nothing kept the head so cool CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 241 and comfortable in hot weather as a pumpkin. From Carlsruhe she went to Vienna, and from thence to Trieste, leaving an unfavourable im pression of her conduct in both places. The familiarity with which she treated her ex-courier, and her appearance at Mass in his company, were not calculated to increase the general respect. While she was thus wandering in restless crav ing for variety from place to place, and moving so frequently that it is a matter of difficulty to trace her steps, her daughter in England was looking forward, eagerly and hopefully, though not without some awe and gravity, to the birth of her infant. " I am not in bad spirits about it," she writes to a friend, " or frightened, yet I think it is a very anxious and awful moment to expect, and one that one cannot feel quite unconcerned about." Less than a fortnight before the event that was destined to prove so tragical, she wrote what was to be her last words regarding the mother, whom she had always loved through all adverse circumstances and influences, in a letter to Lady Charlotte Campbell : — "The only person now remaining with my mother, who I trust will continue with her, is Dr. Holland, who, I believe, from everything I have heard of him, is a most respectable and respected character. I have it not in my power at present to repay any services to the Princess of Wales, but if I ever have those who remain stead fast to her shall not be forgotten by me, though I fear sensible people like him never depend much on promises from anyone, still less a Royal person, so I refrain from making professions of gratitude ; but I do not feel them the less towards all those who show her kindness.. I have not heard from VOL. III. R 242 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. my mother for a long time. If you can give me any intelligence of her I shall be obliged to you to do so. I am daily expecting to be confined, so you may imagine I am not very comfortable. If ever you think of me do not think I am only a Princess, but remember me (with Leopold's kind compliments) as " Tour sincere friend, " Charlotte Princess op Saxe-Coburg." By her special wish she remained at Claremont, the home her husband's love had made so dear to her, for the birth of her babe; and her friends were looking forward to seeing her happiness perfected by the joy of motherhood, when the tidings came that spread such grief over England as those not living at the time find it difficult to realize. Mother and child had both perished, and the warm and generous heart that had suffered and loved so much was stilled for ever in the great silence of death. In the dust The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions ! The news reached Caroline at Pescaro, and her grief was deep and sincere. " I have not only," she wrote to Lady C. Campbell, on the 3rd of December, "to lament an ever-loved child, but one most, Warmly attached friend, and the only one I have had in England ! But she is only gone before. I have not her losset, and I now trust we shall soon meet in a much better world than the present one. For ever your truly sincere friend, CP." -" To my infinite surprise," writes one of her visitors, " her Royal Highness wrote, and desired CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 243 me to wait upon her yesterday, which I did accordingly, and found her looking very well, but dressed in the oddest mourning I ever saw ; a white gown, with bright lilac ribbons in a black crape cap ! " "It is bootless," says Lord Brougham, "to indulge in speculations and surmises, but Grey and I in discussing the event took somewhat different views. He held that death had merci fully saved Princess Charlotte from what would have been, to her, the fearful consequences of the disgraceful proceedings against her mother. I, on the other hand, felt persuaded that, had .she lived, the proceedings of 1820 never would have seen the light. Even against her, standing alone, George IV. would scarcely have ventured to have instituted them; but against her, sup ported by Leopold, he would have found such a course impossible. For Leopold, of all men I have ever known, possessed every quality to ensure success against such a man as George IV. ; and even against such ministers as had meekly, if not dishonestly, done his bidding in 1820." It was at all events after the death of the Princess Charlotte that the "Milan Commission" was appointed to investigate Caroline's conduct, the cause of which was the gossip carried by the valet of a certain Mr. Burrell, who had made some expeditions with the Princess of Wales, to the servants of the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland. The unhappy object of this inquiry remonstrated indignantly with the Regent for appointing a commission to pass judgment on her conduct without previously making her aware of the fact ; but, as was the case with most of her communications to her husband, her letter was utterly ignored. 244 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. From this time to the end of her career as Princess of Wales, Caroline's history grows in distinct and difficult to trace. That many of her proceedings were thoughtless and imprudent, it is impossible to deny ; and rumour magnified and exaggerated the smallest folly into a crime. Always heedless and wilful, the gradual loss of public esteem affected the Princess very little ; and she continued the roving, unsatisfactory life that pleased her best until the death of the blind old King in January, 1820, raised her to the dignity of Queen. That her reputation had suffered grievously during the last three years is patent in the condemnatory words written by Lady Charleville to Lady Morgan, in the succeed ing February : — " The report of all travellers who have had any knowledge of the Princess of Wales renders it imperative that such a woman should not preside in Great Britain over its honest and virtuous daughters, and something is to be done to prevent it." But a far more favourable account was sent by the Lady Morgan, to whom the above was addressed to Lady Clarke. Writing from Rome, she says : "We have Queen Caroline here ; at first this made a great fuss, whether she was or was not to be visited by her subjects, when lo ! she refused to see any of them, and leads the most perfectly retired life ! We met her one day driving out in a state truly royal ;, I never saw her so splendid. Young Austin followed in an open carriage ; he is an interesting- looking young man. She happened to arrive at an inn near Rome when Lord and Lady Leitrim were there. She sent for them, and invited them to tea. Lady Leitrim told me her manner was perfect, and altogether she was a most im proved woman. The Baron attended her at tea, CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 245 but merely as a chamberlain, and was not intro duced." The poet Rogers gives an account of meeting her about this time — the first meeting between them since she had taken offence at his declining to attend her to the theatre years ago in England. -" I was at an inn," he says, " about a stage from Milan, when I saw Queen Caroline's carriages in the court-yard. I kept myself quite close, and drew down the blinds of the sitting-room; but the good-natured Queen found out that I was there, and, coming to the window, knocked on it with her knuckles. In a moment we were the best friends possible'; and there, as after wards in other parts of Italy, I dined and spent the day with her. Indeed, I once travelled during a whole night in the same carriage with her and Lady Charlotte Campbell; when the shortness of her Majesty's legs not allowing her to rest them on the seat opposite, she wheeled herself round, and very coolly placed them on the lap of Lady Charlotte, who was sitting next to, her." We have now arrived at what is at once the most* important and most painful year in the biography of this unfortunate Princess. There are persons yet living who can remember the keen excitement and the intensity of partizanship aroused by the proceedings in 1820, and the deep and dangerous indignation kindled among the •"crowd's untutored chivalry" by what her adherents styled the persecution, and the King's followers the trial, of Queen Caroline. At that time the followers of neither party would have admitted that there could be a redeeming feature en the opposite side. The King's adherents would have no word of explanation or palliation of the 246 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Queen's reputed misdemeanours ; and the Queen's; sympathizers extolled her as a model of womanly decorum and regal dignity. We, in these days, can necessarily take a calmer and a juster view of the situation ; and, while acknowledging and deploring the many follies and what may well be called senseless indiscretions of the Queen, we can yet exonerate her from the calumnies her enemies flung upon her, and honestly sympathize with the countless wrongs and injuries she had been made to endure. " As one reads her story," says Thackeray, " the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous, outraged creature. If wrong there be,. let it be at his door who wickedly thrust her from it." The story of what occurred when the errant Princess found herself Queen is best given in the words of Lord Brougham : — " My correspondence with some friends of the Princess, on whom I could entirely depend — as Sir William Gell, the Miss Berrys, Lady Charlotte- Lindsay, and Lady Glenbervie — made it quite- clear that, after her daughter's death, she had given up all wish to return ; but that the vexation of the constant spies she was beset by, and all the mean contrivances to lower her in the eyes of whatever Court she came near, had made her existence intolerable under this endless annoyance' of every kind, and that she would be most happy if any arrangement could be made for her entire freedom from all vexation. Her wish was to take some royal title in the family, and, having her income secured, to be recognized by our foreign ministers at whatever Court she might choose for a time to have her residence. Being on intimate terms with Lord Hutchinson, a political as well as a personal friend, I wrote him a letter, which he was at liberty to communicate to the CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 247 Prince, with whom he was on intimate terms, though not at all one of the Carlton House set. Though I well knew that the Princess would adopt this plan, yet I purposely avoided any direct communication with her, in order that I might not in any way commit her, and might state dis tinctly that it was only a proposition which I was disposed to make to her, and advise her to consider it. The accounts which I had received from persons from whom I could rely as to the people who had access to her, and the confident statements put about of the Milan inquiry, induced me to join some of the Princess's best and most judicious friends in advising her to accept such terms as I had proposed in this com munication, and to agree, with herself in thinking her remaining abroad, at least for the present, advisable. I expected the proposal would be accepted; but in case it was not, she was not committed by it. I have little or no doubt that if the proposal had been at once accepted by the Regent and his advisers she would have been glad to remain abroad. Things were materially changed, however, in January, 1820. Upon the King's death she had become Queen, and the difficulty became considerable of her position at foreign Courts, which would have been easy while only Princess of Wales ; and then upon becoming Queen, she might have retained the title under which she had been known . before. It must be allowed that the Regent and his Ministers were placed in a great embarrassment by some of the Opposition (Tierney especially) calling for inquiry into the reports circulated, and declaring that without it t&ey could not vote the allowance for life, her then income being limited to the time she was Princess of Wales. There was also this 248 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. -other difficulty, that the acceptance of my propo sition could not occasion her remaining abroad without any express permission to that effect in the grant. Nevertheless, if the annuity had been granted, the omission in the bill of 1814 being supplied, the Prince might have trusted to her complying with the understood conditions, and her coming home would have been avoided, which was the thing both parties desired. Instead of that, she suddenly found herself Queen, without any arrangement whatever, and under no con dition. She was at Geneva, and her best friends strongly recommended her to remain there until some arrangement could be made. But she re ceived letters from less discreet parties in England, urging her to set out ; and she conceived that if she came near England she could more easily negotiate. I was quite convinced that if she once set out she never would stop short. The Milan proceedings were the general topic of conversation, and the feeling which had been so strong in her favour before she left England, had been revived in consequence of those proceed ings. Therefore it was quite certain that those who had written to her whilst she was at Geneva would influence her as she approached England, by speaking in the name of the multitude, and would advise her to throw herself on them for protection against the attempts of the Milan Commission and those who had set it to work. So it happened I had taken the precaution of sending over my brother James to confer with her, and to ascertain who had been examined at Milan, and as far as possible to find out what kind of evidence they had given. It appeared that there was nothing of which she had any reason to be apprehensive, except that almost CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 249 all the witnesses were Italians, and some of them turned-off servants, and others of disreputable class. But I remained of opinion, in which she -entirely concurred, that however impossible it might be to prove any misconduct, it was very much better to have an arrangement which should • supersede all necessity for an inquiry, and leave her conduct entirely unimpeached." Guided by the mistaken counsellors to whom Lord Brougham has alluded, the Queen travelled through France, where, by order of the King, she was treated with studied neglect, to St. Omer. " She was," says Mr. Fitzgerald, "agree ably surprised at Montvard by the arrival of Alderman Wood and Lady Anne Hamilton — the last one of her most faithful and disinterested adherents. The progress of the party along the French posting was not without the grotesqueness which seemed to attend the poor lady's proceed ings. The train consisted of five carriages. A calash, in which sat Alderman Wood and Count Vasali, led the way. The yellow English posting- chariot, with the Royal arms -and 'C.P.W. ' on the panels, followed, containing the Queen, Lady Anne Hamilton, and ' a fine little female child, about three years old, whom her Majesty, in con formity with her benevolent practices on former occasions, has adopted.' Then came three others, containing Mr. William Austin, 'Mr. Wood, junior,' and servants. There were various acci dents and annoyances ; her leaders falling, the post-masters showing disinclination to supply horses, one hiding himself. On another occasion plough horses had to be impressed and ridden for the stage by the carters." From St. Omer the Queen wrote one of her characteristic notes in Flnglish to Lord Liverpool, on learning that, 250 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. since the accession of the new King, her name had been omitted from the Litany. " The Queen of this Relams, wishes to be informed, through the medium of Lord Liverpool, First Minister to the King of this Relams, for which reason or motife the Queen name has been left-out of the general Prayer-books in England, and especially to prevent all her subjects to pay her such respect which is due to the Queen. It is equally a great omittance towards the King that his Consort Queen should be obliged to soummit to such great neglect, or rather araisin from a perfect ignorance ofthe Archbishops of the real existence of the Queen Caroline of England." As Denman, after wards Solicitor-General, remarked, the Queen was still prayed for in the Litany, in the petition that includes "all that are desolate and op pressed." At St. Omer she was met by Lord Hutchinson and Mr. Brougham. " I was the bearer," says- the latter, " of a proposition that she should have all the rights of Queen-Consort, especially as regarded money and patronage, on consenting to live abroad. Lord Hutchinson was the bearer of an intimation that on her coming to England all negotiation must cease. I found her sur rounded by Italians, and resolved to come to England. I advised her against this step, as it must put an end to all negotiation ; for example, upon the right to use a royal title, or even to be presented at foreign Courts as Queen. My im pression was that she had been alarmed at the result of the Milan inquiry, of which most ex aggerated rumours were purposely spread, and that those who urged her coming over had succeeded in persuading her that her safety would be best consulted by the popular feeling- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 251 which her arrival was certain to excite." How she received the proposal Lord Hutchinson had been entrusted with is shown in the correspon dence which passed between that peer and Mr. Brougham regarding it. The first note was from the latter, and ran as follows : — "Mr. Brougham having humbly submitted to the Queen that he had reason to believe that Lord Hutchinson had brought over a proposition from the King to her Majesty, the Queen has been pleased to command Mr. Brougham to request Lord Hutchinson to communicate any such pro position as soon as possible in writing. The bearer of this, Count Vasali, will wait to receive it from his lordship. • "June 4th, 1820." To this Lord Hutchinson sent an elaborate reply : — "St. Omer, June 4th, 1820 " Half -past 1 p.m. " Lord Hutchinson presents his compliments to Mr. Brougham, and requests that he will have the goodness to present his humble and respectful duty to the Queen. He is charged with a proposi tion to her Majesty, both from the Government and with the full knowledge and approbation of the King. But before he mentions it to her Majesty in form, he must look on several papers which contain the intentions of the Government,. and probably even await the arrival of a courier, whom he expects every moment from Paris, and who, undoubtedly, will arrive in the course of a few hours. Lord. Hutchinson would make the communication immediately, but it has not been. 252 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. •conveyed to him in any specific form of words. It can, therefore, only be collected from the bear ing and import of the several papers now in his possession. On a transaction of so delicate a nature it is impossible to observe too much caution and circumspection; and, indeed, he wishes to convey any proposition which he has to make to her Majesty with that respectful deference which is due to her exalted rank, but, at the same time, with that fidelity which he owes to his Sovereign, who has entrusted him with a most delicate com mission, on the occasion and ultimate issue of which depend such important interests, involving in them the honour, happiness, and future destinies •of the Queen of England. Lord Hutchinson hopes thafMr. Brougham and her Majesty will impute his request for a short delay only to the proper motive, which is that of an anxious wish to bring this painful negotiation to an issue equally satis factory to the illustrious persons principally con cerned. Lord Hutchinson has not time to take a copy of this paper, as he does not wish to detain the Count." When the contents of this missive were com municated to the Queen, she directed Mr. Brougham to answer it promptly as follows : — " Mr. Brougham is commanded by the Queen to express to Lord Hutchinson her Majesty's sur prise at his lordship not being ready to state the terms of the proposition of which he is the bearer; but as Lord Hutchinson is desirous of a few hours' delay, her Majesty will wait until five o'clock, in the expectation of receiving a communi cation from his lordship at that hour. " 2 o'clock— June 4th, 1820." CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 253 In two more hours Lord Hutchinson despatched to the Queen the subjoined epistle, which at last made known to her " the proposition " concerning which so much had been said. "June 4th, 1820—4 o'clock. " Sir, — In obedience to the commands of the Queen, I have to inform you that I am not in possession of any proposition or propositions, detailed in a specific form of words, which I could lay before her Majesty, but I can detail to you, for her information, the substance of many con versations held with Lord Liverpool. His Majesty's Ministers propose that £50,000 per annum should be settled on the Queen for life, subject to such conditions as the King may impose. I have also reason to know that the conditions likely to be im posed by his Majesty are, that the Queen is not to assume the style and title of Queen of England, or any title attached to the Royal Family of Eng land. A condition is also to be attached to this grant, that she is not to reside in any part of the United Kingdom, or even to visit England. The consequence of such a visit will be an immediate message to Parliament, and the entire end to all compromise and negotiation. I believe that there is no other condition — I am sure none of any im portance. I think it right to send to you an extract from a letter from Lord Liverpool to me. His words are :— ' It is material that her Majesty should, know, confidentially, that if she should be so ill-advised as to come over to this country, there must then be an end to all. negotiation and com promise. The decision, I may say, is taken to proceed against her as soon as she sets her foot on the British shores.' I cannot conclude this letter without my humble, though serious and sincere '254 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. supplication, that her Majesty will take these propositions into her most calm consideration, and not act with any hurry or precipitation on so im portant a subject. I hope that my advice will not be misinterpreted. I can have no possible interest which would induce me to give fallacious counsel to the Queen. But let the event be what it may, I shall console myself with the reflection that I have performed a painful duty imposed upon me, to the best of my judgment and conscience, and in a case in the decision of which the King, the Queen, the Government, and the people of England, are materially interested. Having done so, I fear neither obloquy nor misrepresentation . I certainly should not have wished to have brought matters to so precipitate a conclusion ; but it is her Majesty's decision, and not mine. I am conscious that I have performed my duty towards her with every possible degree of feeling and delicacy. I have been obliged to make use of your brother's hand, as I write with pain and difficulty, and the Queen has refused to give any, even the shortest delay. " I have the honour to be, Sir, with great re gard, your most obedient, humble servant, " Hutchinson." Her Majesty's mind did not take long to make up when the insulting nature of the proposal was made known to her. The answer was prompt, brief, and unalterably decisive. " Mr. Brougham is commanded by the Queen to acknowledge the receipt of Lord" Hutchinson's letter, and to inform his Lordship that it is quite impossible for her Majesty to listen to such a pro position. " 5 o'clock, June 4th, 1820." CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 255 Poor Lord Hutchinson, who seems to have honestly tried to do his very best for both parties in this very unpleasant negotiation, on receiving this curt acknowledgment, wrote immediately to Mr. Brougham in the following terms : — " St. Omer, 5 o'clock, June 4th, 1820. "Mt Dear Sir,— I should wish that you would enter into a more detailed explanation. But to show you my anxious and sincere wish for an accommodation, I am willing to send a courier to England to ask for further instruction, provided her Majesty will communicate to you whether any part of the proposition which I have made would be acceptable to her; and if there is anything which she may wish to offer to the English Government on her part, I am willing to make myself the medium through which it may pass. " I have the honour to be, etc., " Hutchinson." Before the letter reached its destination, how ever, the Queen had already dismissed her Italian suite, and, accompanied by Lady Anne Hamilton and Alderman Wood, had left for Calais, as the first step on her journey to England. Very in dignant, she was not at all depressed by the treat ment she had received. " My health is good, and my spirit is perfect," she had written a short time previously. " I have seen no personnes of any kind who could give me advice different to my feelings and my sentiments of duty relatif of my present situation and rank of life." There was, however, one " personne " now with her who strongly dis approved of her proceedings — Mr. Brougham, and he at once despatched Lord Hutchinson's letter •af ter her, enclosed in one of his own. 256 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. " St. Omer, half-past 5 o'clock, "June 4th, 1820. " Mr. Brougham presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and encloses the letter which he received from Lord Hutchinson the moment after your Majesty left St. Omer. Mr. Brougham once more implores your Majesty to refrain from rushing into certain trouble, and possible danger; or at least to delay taking this step until Lord Hutchinson shall have received fresh instructions. If your Majesty will authorise Mr. Brougham to make a proposition like the one contained in the other letter, all may yet be well. " But your Majesty will put an end to every kind of accommodation by landing in England." Half an hour later, Mr. Brougham followed up the appeal with another, still more earnest, which. another courier conveyed to her wilful Majesty at Calais. " St. Omer, June 4th, 1820—6 o'clock. "Madam, — I entreat your Majesty once more to reflect calmly and patiently upon the step about to be taken, and to permit me to repeat my deliberate opinion. I do not advise your Majesty to entertain the proposition that has been made. But if another proposition were made instead of it, I should earnestly urge your Majesty to accept it- — namely, that the annuity should be granted without any renunciation of rank or title or rights, and with a pledge on the part of the Government that your Majesty should be acknowledged and received abroad by all the diplomatic agents of the country according to your rank and station, but that your Majesty should not go to England. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 257 The reason why I -should give the advice is, that I can see no real good to your Majesty in such an expedition, if your Majesty can obtain without going all that it is possible to wish. I give this advice, most sincerely convinced that it is cal culated to save your Majesty an infinite deal of pain and anxiety, and also because I am sure it is for the interest of the country. " Suffer me, Madam, to add that there are some persons whose advice is of a different cast, and who will be found very feeble allies in the hour of difficulty. " I know not that I have a right to proceed further, but a strong sense of duty impels me. " H your Majesty shall determine to go to Eng land before any new offer can be made, I earnestly implore your Majesty to proceed in the most private and even secret manner possible. It may be very well for a candidate at an ejection to be drawn into towns by the populace — and they will mean nothing but good in showing this attention to your Majesty — but a Queen of England may well dispense with such popular favour ; and my duty to your Majesty bids me to say very plainly that I shall consider every such exhibition as both hurtful to your Majesty's real dignity, and full of danger in its probable consequences. "I know your Majesty's goodness and good sense too well not to be convinced that you will pardon me for thus once more urging what I had before in conversation stated. " And I have the honour to be your Majesty's. devoted and faithful servant, "H. Brougham." "That Brougham is afraid," remarked! Caroline, as she read the letter; and that was alL s 258 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. the notice she deigned to take of his entreaties. The authorities at Calais had been warned to pay her no attention ; the English colony there were menaced with penalties if they offered her the smallest courtesy ; and the one compliment paid her was by the master of the sailing packet Leopold, who hoisted the royal standard as soon as her Majesty, accompanied by Lady Anne Hamilton and Alderman Wood, went on board. " She sat there as evening closed in," says Dr. Doran, "without an attendant saving the lady already named and the alderman, who not only gave her his escort now, but offered her a home. She had solicited from the Government that a house might be provided for her, but this application had been received with silent con tempt." " She did not start," says Mr. Fitzgerald, " till the following morning, reaching Dover about noon, where she was exhilarated by the honour of a royal salute — quite unexpected— thundering out from the castle. The commandant, having no in structions to the contrary, felt himself bound to follow the usual course. The whole town lined the shores, and though the tide did not allow the vessel to enter the harbour, the intrepid lady in- ; sisted on entering a small boat and getting ashore. Now began those extraordinary ovations and pro- . gresses which were to mark her course and delight her soul. Amid roars and acclamations she walked through Snargate Street, arrayed in the broad hat and pelisse which were to be so familiar to the public. Wright's Hotel had the honour of receiving her, and from this house she departed in the evening, the crowd drawing her carriage. At Canterbury there were torches lit, fresh shouting, . and addresses." She there stayed the night, and CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 259 the next day continued her journey by Gravesend to London, being everywhere enthusiastically re ceived. Not only did the lower classes, with whom she had always been a favourite, deafen her with their acclamations, but the military were -all strongly on her side. "The road was thronged," writes Greville,* " with an immense multitude from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich. Carriages, carts, and horsemen followed, preceded, and surrounded her coach the whole way. She was everywhere received with the greatest enthusiasm. Women waved pocket handkerchiefs, and men shouted everywhere she passed. She travelled in an open landau, Alderman Wood sitting by her side, and Lady Anne Hamilton and another woman opposite. . . The Queen looked exactly as she did before she left England, and seemed neither dispirited nor dismayed. As she passed by White's she bowed and smiled to the men who were in the window. The crowd was not so great in the streets through which she passed. Probably people had ceased to expect her, as it was^so much later than the hour designated for her arrival. .It is impossible to conceive the sensation created by this event. Nobody either blames or approves of her sudden return, but all ask, ' What will be done next ? How is it to end ? ' . . The King in the meantime is in excellent spirits, and the ministers affect the greatest unconcern and talk of the time it will take to pass the Bill to ' settle her business.' ' Her business,' as they call it, will in all probability raise such a tempest as they will find it beyond their power to appease ; and for all his Majesty's unconcern the day of her arrival in England may be such an anniversary to him as he * " Memoirs.'' 260 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. will have no cause to celebrate with such rejoic ing." It was on the evening of the 7th of June that she entered London, and as her carriage passed Carlton House, Alderman Wood, who had been mischievously named " Absolute Wisdom," on account of his exceeding lack of that attribute, practically demonstrated his non-possession of the quality by standing and giving three cheers. The Queen then proceeded to the Alderman's house in South Audley Street, where she lived till a resi dence in Portman Square was made ready for her. " It is impossible," says Lord Brougham, " to de scribe the universal, and strong, even violent, feelings of the people, not only in London, but all over the country, upon the subject of the Queen. Of course, in London the multitude were as unre flecting as they usually are when their feelings are excited. I recollect one instance among many others. The crowd collected wherever they knew her to be, and called her to appear at the window of whatever house she was in. The cheers and noise were excessive, and exposed her to great annoyance and fatigue. They called for cheers to individuals by name, and sometimes the cry was ' Three cheers for Mr. Austin, the Queen's son ; ' thereby assuming her to have been convicted of the high treason of which the inquiry of 1806 had acquitted her." On these occasions, when she used to appear in the balcony, Alderman Wood was wont to lay down a rug for her convenience. She had already given great offence to the King's sense of propriety by allowing the City worthy to drive in her carriage with her when she entered London. " That beast Wood sat by the Queen's side," said her royal husband indignantly. " That was very kind of him ! " said Caroline, to whom the speech was of course repeated. Considering, CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 261 however, that he had freely laid at her disposal the habitation her husband had not thought fit to provide, the latter's anger seemed a little over strained. Her return did not pass without an attempt on the Muses. The youth who was destined to be come famous as Lord Macaulay, celebrated her arrival in a poetical address, " which," says his biographer, "certainly little resembled those effusions that in the old courtly days an university -was accustomed to lay at the feet of its sovereign." Let mirth on every visage shine, And glow in every sonl. Bring forth, bring forth the oldest wine, And crown the largest bowl. Bear to her home, while banners fly From each resounding steeple, And roeketB sparkle in the sky, The daughter of the people. ; Though tyrant hatred still denies Each right that fits thy station, To thee a people's love supplies A nobler coronation : A coronation all unknown To Europe's royal vermin ; For England's heart shall be thy throne. And purity thine ermine ; Thy Proclamation our applause, Applause denied to some ; Thy crown our love ; thy shield onr laws ; Thank Heaven our Queen is come ! It was well for the young poet that he was in those days comparatively unknown ; or the audacious mention of " Europe's royal vermin " might have procured for its author the same penalties as those inflicted on the brother bard who stigmatized his chivalrous Sovereign as "a fat Adonis of fifty." Personal vanity had no 262 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. small share in the many pleasing peculiarities of character exhibited by the First Gentleman in Europe. The Queen "pertinaciously cherished," says Denman, " the hope of a reconciliation, and re lated with pride a compliment twenty years old, paid her by the Prince, when, speaking hand somely of a bride, he had declared, ' she was just like the Princess of Wales.' She might well treasure up these meagre testimonials : they had been few. She looked at me with uncommon earnestness, and said, ' I know the man. Well, mark what I say, we shall be good friends before we die.' Her bearing as she appeared on the balcony was most noble and attractive, firm and graceful, with a fixed courage in her eye. She kept repeating again and again, 'If he wished me to stay abroad, why not leave me in peace ? So here I am.' " After the Queen's arrival no time was lost by her affectionate consort in seeking to drive her out of the country again. " On the 6th of June," says Lord Brougham, "Lord Liverpool in the Lords, and Lord Castlereagh in the Commons, brought down a message from the King, accompanied by a green bag sealed, which contained the evidence upon which the case against the Queen was supposed to be founded. In the Lords, a secret committee of fifteen peers was at once appointed, to whom the contents of the green bag were referred. In the Commons, ministers made an attempt to induce the House to ad; with equal rapidity ; but I was fully prepared for this movement. Without having given the smallest hint of my intention to anyone, save Den man, I effected this by at once entering fully into the whole case. Canning, in answering me, while he CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 265 supported the ministers, acted most honourably, and bore such testimony to the virtue and high bearing of a Princess whose honour, and, I may almost say life, was assailed by a husband whose whole life and conduct in the marriage state had been a barefaced violation of his vows — that ministers were forced to give way, and an adjourn ment was agreed to without a division. How ever, the counsels of men who were base enough to pander to the King's wishes, lest by opposing them the Tory ministry might be destroyed, pre vailed ; and it was determined to introduce a Bill of Pains and Penalties, to degrade the Queen Consort, and to dissolve her marriage with the King." There was, however, at first a strong wish on the part of the ministers to come to some amicable arrangement with the Queen, which might obviate the necessity of such a Bill ; and the Queen, pro vided always that her honour was vindicated, was by no means inclined to be unconciliatory, as is fully evidenced by the following note, written by her desire to Lord Liverpool. "The Queen commands Mr. Brougham to inform Lord Liverpool that she has directed her most serious attention to the declared sense of Parliament as to the propriety of some amicable adjustment of existing differences being attempted, and submitting to that high authority with the gratitude due to the protection she has always re ceived from it, her Majesty no longer waits for a communication from the servants of the Crown, but commands Mr. Brougham to announce her own readiness to consider any arrangement that can be suggested consistent with her dignity and honour. " 1 o'clock, Friday, June 9th, 1820." 264 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. On the morrow her Majesty sent a letter to Mr. Brougham, using for her amanuensis Lady Charlotte Campbell, who had returned to her as Lady in Waiting. " Her Majesty being gone to her bedroom, com mands me to say that she sent for Sir William Grant, according to Mr. Brougham's desire, sup posing that he had some communication to make from Mr. Canning. Sir W. G. came and assured her that he had not seen any of the Cabinet Ministers, and had no communication whatever to make from them. The Queen then represented to Sir W. if he would go to Mr. Canning in her name, that she thought the only way matters could be arranged was for her to have an in terview with the King. Sir W. G. took this message to Mr. Canning, and returned, saying that Mr. Canning thought it quite impossible that such a proposal could be made to the King ; he also said — except the Queen would throw herself on the mercy of the King. She then assured Sir W. that her Majesty would never ask mercy of the King, and that she only wished to have an audi ence of his Majesty, as every person had a right to have. "Mr. Canning also mentioned that the report had been presented to the King on Saturday even ing, and now he had no more power to interfere in his Majesty's affairs. "June 10th, 1820. "P.S.— The Queen desires Mr. Brougham to consider through what channel it could best be effected for her Majesty to see the King." The reply of Caroline's Attorney-General was, that he saw no chance whatever of such an inter- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 265 view ; and on the same day she wrote by -his hand another letter to Lord Liverpool. " The Queen commands Mr. Brougham to inform Lord Liverpool that she has received his letter, and that the memorandum of April 15th, 1820, which the proposition made through Lord Hutchinson had appeared to supersede, has also been now sub mitted to her Majesty for the first time. " Her Majesty does not consider the terms there specified as at all according with the condition upon which she informed Lord Liverpool yesterday that she would entertain a proposal — namely, that it should be consistent with her dignity and honour. "At the same time she is willing to acquit those who made this proposal of intending anything offensive to her Majesty, and Lord Liverpool's letter indicates a disposition to receive any sug gestion which she may offer. " Her Majesty retains the same desire which she commanded Mr. Brougham yesterday to ex press, of submitting her own wishes to the authority of Parliament, now so decisively inter posed. Still acting upon the same principles, she jnow commands Mr. Brougham to add, that she feels it necessary, before making any further pro posal, to have it understood that the recognition of her rank and privileges as Queen must form the basis of any arrangement which can be made. "The moment that basis is established, her Majesty will be ready to suggest a method by which she conceives all existing differences may be satisfactorily adjusted. "June 10th, 1820." This missive drew from Lord Liverpool the following reply :— • 266 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. " Lord Liverpool has had the honour of receiv ing the Queen's communication, and cannot refrain from expressing the extreme surprise of the King's servants that the memorandum of April 15th, the only proposition to her Majesty which was ever authorized by his Majesty, should not have been submitted to her Majesty until yesterday. "That memorandum contains so full a com munication of the intentions and views of the King's Government with respect to the Queen, as to have entitled his Majesty's servants to an equally frank, full, and candid explanation on the- part of her Majesty's advisers. " The memorandum of the 15th of April, while it proposed that her Majesty should abstain from the exercise of the rights and privileges of Queen,. with certain exceptions, did not call upon her Majesty to renounce any of them. " Whatever appertains to her Majesty by law as Queen, must continue to appertain to her so long as it is not abrogated by law. " The King's servants, in expressing their readi ness to receive the suggestion for a satisfactory adjustment which her Majesty's advisers promise,. think it right, in order to save time, distinctly to state, that any proposition which they could feel it to be consistent with their duty to recommend to his Majesty, must have for its basis her Majesty's residence abroad. " Fife House, June 11th, 1820." Neither sentiments nor language were very con ciliatory, but Caroline and her advisers displayed,, on their side, no desire to retreat from the digni fied and unaggressive attitude they had assumed. " The Queen commands Mr. Brougham," ran her- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 267' answer, "to acknowledge having received Lord Liverpool's note of last night, and to inform his Lordship that her Majesty takes it for granted that the memorandum of April 15th was not sub mitted to her Majesty before Saturday, only be cause her legal advisers had no opportunity of seeing her until Lord Hutchinson was on the spot prepared to treat with her Majesty. " Her Majesty commands Mr. Brougham to state that as the basis of her recognition as Queen is admitted by the King's Government, and as his Majesty's servants express their readiness to re ceive any suggestion for a satisfactory adjustment, her Majesty, still acting upon the same principles which have always guided her conduct, will now point out a method by which it appears to her that the subject in contemplation may be obtained. "Her Majesty's dignity and honour being secured, she regards all other matters as of com paratively little importance, and is willing to leave everything to the decision of any person or persons of high station and character whom both parties may concur in naming, and who shall have authority to prescribe the particulars as to resi dence, patronage, and income — subject, of course, , to the approbation of Parliament. "June 12th, 1820. " The Queen commands Mr. Brougham to add that, as her only wish is to vindicate herself, whatever arrangement may be calculated to secure this object without offering any injury to the feel ings of others, will be most likely to afford satis faction to her Majesty." This proposal was received by Lord Liverpool. "268 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. with a qualified assent. The ministers were really anxious to prevent all the disgraceful proceedings that were imminent should the Bill of Pains and Penalties be put in force, and were glad to wel come any prospect of a satisfactory arrangement ; but at the same time they did not hold it con sistent with their dignity to receive with too much readiness any suggestion from the Queen, nor indeed would such readiness have been at all ap proved by their kingly master, whose whole soul was absorbed in a frantic longing for divorce. Accordingly the following guarded reply to -Caroline's note was despatched : — " Lord Liverpool has received the communica tion made by the Queen's commands. " The King's servants feel it to be unnecessary to enter into any discussion on the early parts of this ¦communication, except to repeat that the memo randum delivered to Mr. Brougham of the 15th of April contained the only proposition to the Queen which the King authorized to be made to -her Majesty. "The views and sentiments of the King's Government as to her Majesty's actual situation are sufficiently explained in Lord Liverpool's note . ¦of the 11th inst. " Lord Liverpool will proceed, therefore, to the proposal made on the part of her Majesty at the ¦ close of this communication — namely, that she ' is willing to leave everything to the decision of any person or persons of high station and cha racter whom both parties may concur in naming, and who shall have authority to prescribe for the particulars as to residence, patronage and income — subject, of course, to the approbation of Parlia ment.' CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 269 " The King's confidential servants cannot think it consistent with their constitutional responsi bility to advise the King to submit to any arbitra tion a matter so deeply connected with the honour and dignity of his crown, and with the most important public interests; but they are fully sensible of the advantages which may be derived from an unreserved personal discussion ; and they are therefore prepared to advise his Majesty to appoint two of his Majesty's confidential servants who, in concert with the like number of persons to be named by the Queen, may frame an arrange ment, to be submitted to his Majesty, for settling, upon the basis of Lord Liverpool's note ofthe 11th inst., the necessary particulars of her Majesty's future situation. "Fife House, June J 3th, 1820. " Lord Liverpool presents his compliments to Mr. Brougham, and requests that he will inform the Queen that if the accompanying answer should not appear to require any reply, Lord Liverpool is prepared to name the two persons whom his Majesty will appoint for the purpose referred to in this note." This missive was promptly answered by Mr. Brougham, who conveyed the Queen's willingness to name two persons to meet two others of his Majesty's Government, " for the purpose of set tling an arrangement ; " and accordingly the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, on the King's part, and Lords Fitzwilliam and Sefton on the Queen's, met at Wentworth House, Grosvenor Square. Mr. Brougham was asked to be present at the conference at this first sitting, in order that he might introduce the different negotiators 270 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. to each other. " There were," he says, " all sorts of blunders and mistakes as to time ; and after a ridiculous hour passed in waiting for one person and another, rendered the more ridiculous from the arbitrators thinking fit to come in Court-dress, we all separated, nothing being done or said, except by the Duke, who, with his usual good sense, observed that the affair never could go on unless, instead of Sefton and Fitzwilliam — who, after the first meeting had declined to act — Denman and I should be the persons on the Queen's part, which he undertook to make the Government of the King approve ; and accordingly Denman and I were accepted by the Government on. the part of the Queen. We had several meetings, and I conceived a very high opinion, not only of the Duke's ability as a negotiator, but also of Castlereagh's. It was plain from the first that they had nothing like full powers from the King. Nor, indeed, had we from the Queen ; for, upon some alarm being given her by the meddling folks whom she saw, she complaiped that she was not informed of the whole of the negotiation, although we made a point of conveying to her the substance of each day's discussion. Another thing happened both during the negotiation and at other parts of the proceeding. Acting under the influence of Lady Anne Hamilton, she sent letters to the Speaker, to be read to the House of Commons, or rather formal messages, beginning Caroline E., which Lady Anne's brother, Lord Archibald (our staunch supporter) and myself were never aware of till an hour before they were to be read by the Speaker ; and on one occasion we had hardly time to prevent it by hastening to her house and causing her to countermand what she had been induced to do. More than once I have been obliged to say CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 271 fhat unless the step intended was abandoned I must resign my place in her service." Hampered and restricted in both as both sides were, it was not wonderful that the negotiations should come to nothing, and that the "satisfactory adjust ment," about which so much had been said, should never be arrived at. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that, had any arrangement been contrived which would bring satisfaction to the Queen, it would have been a source of unfeigned disappoint ment and disapprobation to the King. On the one hand it would have destroyed the scheme of divorc ing her on which he had set his heart ; and on the other, it might have given pleasure to the abhorred wife whom he would much have preferred causing to suffer. There was another attempt made to prevent matters proceeding to extremity. On the 20th of June Mr. Wilberforce brought forward a motion which was agreed to by the House, " expressive of the regret of Parliament that the illustrious ad versaries had not been able to complete an amicable arrangement of their difficulties, and declaring that the Queen would sacrifice nothing of her good name nor of the righteousness of her cause, nor be held as shrinking from inquiry, by consent ing to accept the counsel of Parliament, and for bearing to press further the adoption of those propositions on which any material difference of opinion is yet remaining."* This.resolution was embodied in an address to her Majesty, which was conveyed to her by Wilberforce, the mover, and three other members. All courtly forms were observed at the reception of these gentlemen. The Queen, clad in black satin, with a wreath of laurel and emeralds in her * Dr. Doran. 272 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. hair, surmounted by a plume of feathers, stood in the front drawing-room of her house in Portman Street, with Lady Anne Hamilton in the rear, and her Attorney and Solicitor-General, Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman, in their wigs and gowns, on either side. The folding doors which divided the apartment were thrown open, and the members advanced, and each in turn knelt on one knee, and kissed her hand., Caroline received them with great courtesy, but utterly declined to accede to their request, on the ground that by so doing her character would suffer — a refusal that gave the crowd assembled before her house to hear her decision great satisfaction, and much increased her popularity generally. In the army her cause was vehemently espoused. Cries of "God save Queen Caroline ! " were frequent, and the soldiers in London showed themselves so disaffected that it was very doubtful if the Guards could have been relied upon in case of any disturbance. Indeed, one battalion of the Guards — the 3rd — mutinied, and were ordered to Portsmouth ; and though the King's friends averred that they did so on account of the harshness of their colonel, the Duke of Gloucester, the public declared that the cause was their sympathy with the Queen. "The story," says Mr. Grey-Bennett, "soon got wind, and in the evening some thousands of persons assembled opposite to the barracks in the King's Mews, Charing Cross, shouting, 'Queen for ever ! ' and calling to the soldiers to do the same. The people made every coachman and foot man of the carriages passing by take off their hats to the barracks in honour of the soldiers ;. and there was evidently a very bad feeling among them. I mixed in the crowd coming up from the House of Commons, and heard many unpleasant CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 278 observations. The Life Guards at last came and the people dispersed ; but I believe one or two people were wounded. The 3rd Guards on the march to Portsmouth behaved in a most disorderly manner. My neighbour, Sir Thomas Williams, told me that some were quartered at Collen, near his house, and that he went towards the village in the evening and heard them shouting, ' Queen for ever ! ' and I have been told the same took place at Kingston, where they drank the health of all the popular leaders in the alehouses where they were billeted. As usual, all this was denied by the Government and the officers ; but it is true,, and no doubt a strong feeling of compassion for the Queen existed in the minds of the soldiers. Even the 10th Hussars, the King's Own Regiment, showed it, and a person of credit told me he walked into the Ivy Tavern, Hampton Court, where the regiment was quartered, and passing by the tap saw twelve or fourteen soldiers sitting in it, one of them taking up a pot of porter said, ' Come, lads, the Queen ! ' when they all rose and drank her health. " " The extinguisher was taking fire," as was remarked at the time. The enthu siasm of the mob took the form of breaking windows, and pelting all who did not uncover when they passed her door. " It is odd enough," writes Greville, " Lady Hertford's windows have been broken to pieces and the frames driven in, while no assault has been made on Lady Conyng- ham's." The latter, it should be observed, was the reigning Sultana of the Court, whose doors the Sovereign had so successfully closed against his wife. i The Government, who had no liking for the un precedented task with which they were threatened, were much disappointed at the Queen's refusal to VOL. III. T 274 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. assent to their entreaty. The King, on the con trary, would have been equally disappointed had anything occurred to interfere with his cherished scheme of divorce. Very reluctantly the ministers commenced the secret inquiry into the evidence contained in the famous green bag. The Queen- protested indignantly against such a proceeding,- with the usual result, poor lady ! of being calmly ignored. While this inquiry was going on, she lived quietly, appearing httle in public, except to receive and answer the numberless addresses which poured upon her from all parts of the country. These answers, written for her by de voted partizans, were generally happy in pleasing those for whom they were intended. "I have derived unspeakable consolation," she said to the citizens of London, " from the zealous and con stant attachment of this warm-hearted, just, and generous people, to live at home with and to cherish whom will be the chief happiness of the remainder of my days." She made a public visit to Guildhall, and one day honoured Alderman Waithman by inspecting his shop; but on both occasions lowered her own dignity by allowing the mob to remove her horses, and literally drag her through the mire — one of the manifestations against which Mr. Brougham had so seriously warned her. One of her many advocates suggested that she might yet fittingly compromise her claims by having her name restored in the Litany, being crowned, holding an annual Drawing-room at Kensington Palace, and permanently residing at Hampton Court, with an income of £55,000 a-year. The terms were, however, far too liberal even to have been offered, even had the Queen cared to accept them; but, as she remarked, what she wanted was, not a victory without a battle, but a CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 275 victory after feeling that she had deserved. one. She occasionally visited Blackheath,. but was in. London when, early in July, the secret committee made their report, which testified that the docur ments examined contained allegations, supported by many witnesses, which evidenced " a continued series of conduct highly unbecoming her Majesty's rank and station, and of the most licentious character," and unwillingly recommended a solemn legislative inquiry into the matter. The Queen showed no sign of dismay when this intelligence reached her. She drove out the same evening, and was vociferously cheered by the mob, who were indignant that the Princess Sophia, when her carriage met that of the Queen near Kensing ton Gate, gave no sign of recognition, and that her servants did not uncover as they passed Caro line. On the following day, Wednesday, the 5th of July, the famous and disgraceful Bill of Pains and Penalties — a bill for the degradation and divorce of the Queen — was brought in by Lord Liverpool. To critical eyes it seemed more than a little strange that such a King should crave relief from matrimonial shackles. The Premier en deavoured to explain away this seeming incon gruity. The sin of a Queen was, he said, a crime against the State. " The private offence is merged in the public crime, and must follow the effect of it. How is it possible to entertain a charge of recrimination against a King who, in the eye of the law, can-do no wrong?" The Queen petitioned to be made aware of the nature of the charges against her — a petition which was refused ; and the Bill was introduced, charging her with shameful and unwomanly conduct, and proposing that "Caroline Amelia Elizabeth should *be deprived of her rights, ranks, and privileges as 276 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Queen, and that her marriage with the King be dissolved and disannulled to all intents and pur poses." A copy of this effusion was brought by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt to the Queen, who, not unnaturally, did not receive it unmoved. Had the- Bill been presented to her a quarter of a century earlier, she remarked, it might have served the King's purpose better. She should never meet her husband again in this world, she went on to- say, but she hoped to do so in the next, where certainly justice would be done to her. She sent to the House of Commons a message of indignant surprise that she should be assumed as guilty on the report of a committee which had not taken the evidence of a single witness ; and her friends in the Lower House were not slow to take up arms on her behalf. Mr. Canning, though speaking on the Ministerial side, paid her a tribute of warm and emphatic praise. " There was no society in Europe of which she would not be the grace, life, and ornament." The honourable gentleman called upon the Government to come forward frankly, and at once, asher Majesty's accusers. "I, for one, will never, so help me God, place myself in the situation of her accuser." Among the Queen's supporters Sir Bobert Ferguson, especially, asked awkward questions about the foreign spies and the Milan Commission. These proceedings he said, which had originated with Sir John Leach,. had cost the nation nearly £40,000, for half of which sum enough Italian witnesses might easily be procured to blacken the reputation of any woman in England. Nevertheless, the Italian witnesses against whom: he inveighed, were procured by the Government, on very liberal terms — one being a servant dis charged from the Queen's service for robbing her CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 277 -of four hundred napoleons — and were landed at Dover, where they were not politely treated, and the ministers fearing that they would meet with a still more undesirable reception in the metropolis, moved them to various parts of London, and then sent them to Holland, to the great disgust of the worthy Dutchmen ; till finally a refuge was found for them in Colton Garden. " There was some thing revolting," says Mr. Fitzgerald, " in seeing the large space next Westminster Bridge being built in and barricaded, so that there could be no approach save from the river. The houses of the officers of the House of Lords were devoted to their accommodation, while the place was regularly victualled, furniture being secretly introduced; walls were run up to prevent their being seen as they took exercise ; and gunboats on the river and a military force on. the land side strictly . guarded fhem ; while the royal cooks were installed/' It was perhaps fortunate for the witnesses, that they were so amply protected; for Lord Albemarie describes the mob as hovering round their abiding place "like a cat round the cage of a canary." Lord Brougham was not slow to improve to advantage the low character of most of the wit nesses offered him, and, when the trial had com menced, apologised with telling irony for " seeking to elude a bill supported by so respectable a body of witnesses as those assembled in Colton Garden. Judging from their exterior they must be like those persons with whom your lordships are in the habit of associating. They must doubtless be seized in fee-simple of those decent habiliments — persons who would regale themselves at their own expense, live in separate apartments, have full powers of locomotion, and require no other escort than their lacauais de place." ¦' 278 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. All this injustice and harshness directed against her made Caroline more popular than ever with. her supporters ; and she did not lack friends who were both valuable and devoted. Dr. Parr was enthusiastic in her cause. He entered in a blank page in the Prayer Book in his church at Halton, a solemn protest against the oppression she en dured, adding his conviction of her complete innocence, and his resolve, though forbidden to mention her name, to mentally include her in the prayer for "all the Eoyal Family." An injudicious friend begged him not to mix himself up with her case, now that matters looked so gloomy. His only reply was to proceed at once to London, where he procured the office of one of her Majesty's chaplains, and preached before her eloquent sermons, exhorting her not to despise the chasten ing of the Lord, to which the Queen, whose behaviour at church was reverent and devout, listened attentively. Through his influence the Rev. Mr. Fellowes was appointed another of Caroline's chaplains, and it was one or other Of the two clergymen who generally wrote for her the answers to addresses, which contrived to say the most cutting things of the King without- appearing to treat him uncourteously. These addresses to the Queen increased both in number and in strength, of language; and the royal answers fully corresponded to them in the last particular. " When my accusers," she said to a deputation from Canterbury, " offered to load me with wealth, on condition of depriving me of iionour, my habitual disinterestedness and my conscious integrity made me spurn the golden lure. My enemies have not yet taught me that wealth is desirable when it is coupled with infamy." " In the'Bill of Pains and Penalties/* CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 279 she remarked in her answer to the Shoreditch address, " my adversaries first condemn me with out proof, and then, with a sort of novel refine ment in legislative science, proceed to enquire whether there is any proof to justify the condem nation." The King she invariably, and justly, spoke of as her " oppressor." "To pretend," she said in one of her answers, " that his Majesty is not a party, and the sole complaining party, in this great question, is to render the whole business a mere mockery. His Majesty either does or does not desire the divorce which the Bill of Pains and Penalties proposes to accomplish. If his Majesty does not desire the divorce, it is certain that the State does not desire it in his stead ; and if the divorce is the desire of his Majesty, his Majesty ought to seek it on the same terms as his subjects ; for in a limited monarchy the law is one and the same for all." " It would have been well for me," she observed on another occasion, " and perhaps not ill for the country, if my oppressor had been as far from malice as myself ; for what is it but malice of the most unmixed nature and the most unrelenting character, which has infested my path and waylaid my steps during a long period of twenty-five years ? " She alluded in her reply to the Hammersmith address to the ministers who were her adversaries. " To have been one of the peers who, after accusing and condemning, affected to sit in judgment on Queen Caroline, will be a sure passport to the splendid notoriety of ever lasting shame." In answer to the Greenwich deputation she referred to the time when she was living among them, and continued, " Can I ever be unmindful that it was a period when I could behold the countenance which I never beheld without vivid delight, and hear that voice which 280 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. to my fond ear was like music breathing over violets ? Can I forget ? No ; my soul will never suffer me to forget that, when the cold remains of my beloved object were deposited in the tomb, the malice of my persecutors would not even suffer the name of the mother to be inscribed upon the coffin of her child. Of all the indignities I have experienced, this is one which, minute as it may seem, has affected me as much as all the rest. But if it were minute, it was not so to my agoniz ing sensibility." She sent a letter to the King, which he evaded answering by refusing to read. i( Tou have left me nothing but my innocence," she told him, " and you would now, by a mockery of justice, deprive me of the reputation of possess ing even that." Occasionally the presentation of an address to her was not without a ludicrous aspect. The married ladies of London sent a deputation with an expression of their sympathy. The deputation, chiefly wives of small shopkeepers, descended from their hackney coaches on reaching the royal residence as a man descends a ladder ! The answer given them by the Queen was, how ever, delivered with all the dignity she could, when she pleased, so well assume. " I shall never sacrifice that honour," she declared, "which is the glory of a woman." Public opinion ran high in her favour, and one military chaplain, a Mr. Gillespie, continuing to pray for her by name as the Queen, was placed under arrest for doing so. " The Queen " was the topic of the hour, and the pros and cons of her case were argued as uni versally and vehemently as were the pretensions of the Tichborne claimant iu our own days, till even Greville, keen lover of " details " as he was, grew weary of the theme. " The discussion of the Queen's business," he complains, " is now become CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 281 an intolerable nuisance in society ; no other sub ject is ever talked of. It is an incessant matter of argument and dispute what will be done and what ought to be done. All people express them selves tired of the subject, yet none talk or think -of any other. It is a great evil when a single subject of interest takes possession of society; conversation loses all its lightness and variety, and every drawing-room is converted into an arena of political disputation. People even go to talk about it from habit long after the interest it excited has ceased." Meanwhile the Queen left her residence in Portman Street for Brandenburgh House on the banks of the Thames near Hammer smith, the old residence of the Margravine of Anspach, where she was guarded nightly by en thusiastic volunteer sentinels. The universal dis cussion of her innocence or guilt, the anticipation of the disgraceful evidence of the Italians, who, however blameless she were, would be certain to recount as much as they saw desired of them — and the notoriety in which she lived, would have been terrible to many women ; but Caroline, poor lady, had never erred on the side of ultra-refinement; and her high spirit and undaunted courage, and the sympathy of the people, enabled her to face, with tolerable equanimity, events that would have killed a less stout-hearted and more finely-strung victim. She was not without friends in the House of Lords; and one of them, Lord Erskine, on the second reading of the Bill, insisted on her right to have a list of the witnesses against her. This he urged strongly again and again, with no effect ; a,nd a petition on the same subject from Caroline herself met with as little response. As the names of the witnesses were to be withheld, she begged JJ- 282 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. that she might at least have a list of the times, places, when and where it was alleged she had acted improperly. This request Lord Eldon merely noticed by characterizing it as " simply absurd " Popular opinion declared her to be unfairly treated. " Everybody seems to agree," says Greville, " that it is a great injustice not to allow her lists of the witnesses ; the excuse that it is not usual is bad, for the proceedings are anomalous altogether, and it is absurd to attempt to adhere to precedent ; here there are no precedents and no analogies to guide to a decision." CHAPTER VI. The Queen's trial — Her attendance at the House of Lords — Evidence of the Italian witnesses — Brougham's speech — Displeasure of the King- — Denman's speeoh— Popularity of the Queen — Visit of Prince Leopold — Abandonment of the Bill — Reception of the news by the Queen — Enthusiasm in the country — Scene in the HonBe — The thanksgiving service at St. Paul's — The provision for the Queen — Libels on the- Queen — The approaching coronation — The King's resolve — Caroline's appearanoe at the Abbey — Her repulse — Her ill. - ness — Her death — Her will. On the 17th of August what everyone rightly Spoke .of as "the Queen's trial " commenced, her defence being in the hands of Brougham and Den man. How the former was prepared to do her service, the latter's words will best convey. " Let me here state, once and for all, that from this moment I am sure that Brougham thought of nothing but serving and saving his client. I, who saw more of him nearly than any man, can bear witness that from the period in question his whole powers were devoted to her safety and welfare. He felt that the battle must be fought, and resolved to fight it manfully and ' to the utterance.' " That he was acting under an honest belief in the utter falsity of the charges brought against her, his own words prove ; and the testimony of an honourable gentleman, spoken from the depths of thorough conviction, goes far towards estab- , lishing the fair fame of the persecuted lady re ferred to. " Of the utter groundlessness of these charges we all had the most complete and unhesitating- belief ; and I quite as much as any of the others. The evidence and discussion at the trial not only 284 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. failed to shake the conviction with which we set out from our knowledge of the Milan proceedings, and from our communication with such of her household as had attended her in the south, but very greatly confirmed it, and removed whatever doubts had for a moment crossed our minds. I can most positively affirm, that if every one of us had been put upon our oaths as jurymen, we should all have declared that there was not the least ground for the charges against her. The same was the clear and decided opinion of those most acquainted personally with her habits, from having been long on intimate terms with her — as Lord Archibald Hamilton ; or having been her ladies — as Lady Charlotte Lindsay and Lady Glenbevrie. All these laughed to scorn the stories told by the witnesses about what had passed on shore, and still more, if possible, the tales of what had passed on board ship in the Levant." The Queen gave notice that she should attend every day in the House of Lords while the trial lasted; and as Brandenburgh House was incon veniently far from Westminister, the widow of Sir Philip Francis offered her Majesty the use of her house in St. James's Square, which was at once accepted. She did not sleep there, but used generally to arrive there very early in the morn ing, and proceed from thence, in state, to the House of Lords, accompanied by Lady Ann Hamilton, Sir W. Gell, Mr. Keppel Craven, and Alderman Wood, who invariably attempted to escort the Queen to the Upper House, and was as invariably prevented, as, being a Member of Parliament, his proper entrance was that appor tioned to the Commons. A withdrawing-room was provided for Caroline's use, and she was -altogether treated with courtesy, as she more than CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 285 once remarked, when she seated herself on the almost throne-like chair placed for her near her counsel. She was usually received with military honours, and led into the House by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and Mr. Brougham, each holding her by the hand. On the morning of the 1 7th of August, says Mr. Fitzgerald, " the peers began to arrive betimes, while the Chancellor came at the singularly early hour of eight. Every window and housetop was covered with spectators. The Duke of York arrived on horseback, the Duke of Wellington being hissed and groaned at. The Duke of Sussex was received rapturously. The roar of voices all along the route gave notice of the procession, for such it was, which was to be the daily programme for some time to come, which swelled into shouts as the carriage, drawn by six horses, with servants in the royal liveries of" scarlet and gold with purple velvet caps and facings, came into view. Behind followed other carriages, containing Sir William Gell and Mr. Keppel Craven, who, though they might have left her service in some disgust at her conduct, were chivalrous enough to return to it, to show their belief in her innocence of more serious charges. This to an impartial mind would not be without weight. Along the route the soldiers on duty were posted, and the multitude watched those stationed at Carlton House with feverish anxiety, to see whether they would present arms. They did so, to the delight and even rapture of the mob, who shook hands with them, while some of the women embraced them. The cries were all of the same affectionate character. ' God bless your Majesty ! ' ' We'll give our blood for you ! ' « The Queen or death ! ' ' May you overcome your enemies ! ' Men were seen carrying green bags- 286 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. at the end of long poles." The Queen entered the House punctually at ten o'clock, while the' names of the peers were being called over, dressed in black satin, with a plain laced cap and veil. All present rose to receive her — a courtesy she ac knowledged with much dignity. The following day her costume was not in such good taste. " Den man was addressing the House on the morning of the 18th," says Lord Albemarle, "when a con fused sound of drums, trumpets, and human voices announced the approach of the Queen. Beams a foot square had been thrown across the street between St. Margaret's Church and the Court of Queen's Bench ; but this barrier her Majesty's admirers dashed through with as much ease as if they had been formed of reeds, and ac companied her Majesty to the entrance of the House. The peers rose as the Queen entered, and remained standing until she took her seat in a crimson and gilt chair, immediately in front of her counsel. Her appearance was anything but prepossessing. She wore a black dress with a high ruff, an unbecoming gipsy hat with a huge bow in front, the whole surmounted with a plume of ostrich feathers. Nature had given her light hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and a good- humoured expression of countenance; but these characteristics were marred by painted eyebrows and by a black wig with a profusion of curls, which overshadowed her cheeks, and gave a bold defiant air to her features." Her counsel Denman, however, who was enthusiastic in her cause, gives a much more favourable sketch of her. " I never saw a human being so interesting. Her face was pale, her eyelids a little sunken, her eyes fixed on the ground, with no expression of alarm or con sciousness, but with an appearance of decent CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 287 -distress at being made the subject of such re volting calumnies." The first two days passed without any proceedings of particular interest, the only event worth recording being an attempt by the Duke of Leinster to get rid of the Bill at the eleventh hour, which was negatived. Mr. Brougham also spoke ably against the Bill, dwelling strongly on the fact that the accused was prevented showing the guilt of her accuser. On the 19th the Attorney-General opened his case in a speech in which, professing to have substantial proof of all his assertions, he de scribed the Queen's conduct as disgraceful to her alike as Princess and woman. The Queen entered as he was concluding, and immediately after the first of the Italian witnesses, Theodore Majocchi, who was indebted to her for much kindness, was brought in. Overwhelmed at see ing him turn against her, she exclaimed, "Oh, traditore ! " and at once retired to her with- drawing-room, from whence she did not again return to the House. "This," says Lord Brougham, "looked like an alarm, and was sedulously represented as an indication that she knew he came to give testimony which she was afraid of, and that her expression was of astonish ment that he should appear against her. Possibly it was ; but the failure of his evidence to stand cross-examination and sifting completely proved that she had no reason to fear anything but his gross perjury." All these Italian witnesses on the side of the Government swore boldly to shameless conduct on the part of Caroline; but on cross- examination many admitted that they were hostile to and jealous of the ex-courier. The evidence of all, however, with some discrepancies, tallied. They all " deposed to an ostentation of criminality 288 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. in parties, who, if guilty, must have been most deeply interested in concealing all evidences of guilt, and one of whom at least knew that she was constantly watched and daily reported of. This contradiction very soon struck Lord Eldon himself, who intimated that some measures should be taken to punish perjury, if it could be proved to have been committed. It is certain that the King's case was materially damaged at a very early stage of the proceedings, not only by the discrepancy in the evidence, but by the suspicious alacrity of the witnesses in tendering it."* Many of the lowest class, and all ready with voluble testimony of disgraceful conduct, the witnesses surpassed each other in the graphic descriptions they gave of Caroline's proceedings, each seeming to blacken the blackness. It was remarked that " none of them had the look of speaking from recollection . . . . there is a visible difference between th.e expression of a recollection and an imagination, especially such stories as they told."t The terribly adverse nature of the testimony was in itself an' obstacle to the King's case. " By making it more gross than in all human proba bility it could be," writes a contemporary, " the evidence, where it might otherwise be trusted, is rendered unworthy of credit." By the 7th of September all the witnesses on the side of the Government had given their evidence, and the House adjourned till the 3rd of October, thankful, no doubt, to be released from hearing the dis gusting details which they had heard repeated ad nauseam for the past fortnight. The public excitement was very great, and even the Duke of Wellington, hitherto the idol of the nation, lost much of his popularity through his adherence to * Dr. Doran. + " Diary of the Times of George IV." CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 289 the King. He was hissed violently one morning as he proceeded to the House; and another day the mob followed him, insisting on his crying, " The Queen ! " He rode on in silence, calmly ignoring them; but as they followed, reiterating their demand, he grew impatient, and turned sharply round on his pursuers with the exclama tion, " Very well ; the Queen then, and may all your wives be like her ! " Mr. Brougham, occupied as he was with the defence of a Queen, in a case which has had no parallel in modern times, was yet not so absorbed in preparation for the coming ordeal as to be inaccessible to humble clients. He went down to Yorkshire for the assizes in the interval before the continuation of the trial, and "was there engaged in a case on behalf of an old woman upon whose pig-cot a trespass had been committed. The tenement in question was on the border of a common of one hundred acres, upon five yards of which it was alleged to have unduly encroached, and was therefore pulled down by the landlord. The poor woman sought for damages, she having held occupation by a yearly rental of sixpence, and sixpence on entering. The learned counsel pleaded his poor client's cause successfully, and, having procured for her the value of her levelled pig-cot, some forty shilbngs, he returned to town to endeavour to plead as successfully the cause of the Queen."* On that memorable Tuesday, October 3rd, Mr. Brougham entered on Caroline's defence, in a speech of wonderful eloquence, brilliance, and power. Always as undaunted as keen-witted,. the boldness of the course he took in his line of defence may be estimated by the fact that he dis- * Dr. Doran. VOL. III. W 290 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF ' WALES. tinctly declared that, did the course of events render such a proceeding necessary, he should have no hesitation in recriminating on the husband who had assailed his wife's reputation. "My lords," he said, "the Princess Caroline of Bruns wick arrived in this country in the year 1 795 — the niece of our Sovereign, the intended consort of his Heir- Apparent, and herself not a very remote heir to the crown of these realms. But I now go back to that period only for the purpose of passing over all the interval which elapsed between her arrival then and her departure in 1814. I rejoice that, for the present at least, the most faithful discharge of my duty permits me to draw this veil ; but I cannot do so without pausing for an instant to guard myself against a misrepresenta tion to which I know this cause may not un naturally be exposed, and to assure your lordships most solemnly that if I did not think that the cause of the Queen, as attempted to be estab lished by the evidence against her, not only does not require recrimination at present — not only imposes no duty of even uttering one whisper, whether by way of attack or by way of insinuation, against the conduct of her illustrious husband — but that it rather prescribes to me, for the present, silence upon this great and painful head of the case. I solemnly assure your lordships, that but for this conviction, my lips on that branch would wot be closed ; for, in discretionally abandoning the exercise of the power which I feel I have, in postponing for the present the statement of that case of which I am possessed, I feel confident that I am waiving a right which I possess, and abstain ing from the use of materials which are mine. And let it not be thought, my lords, that if either now I did conceive, or if hereafter I should so CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 291 far be disappointed in my expectation that the case against me will fail, as to feel it necessary to exercise that right — let no man vainly suppose, that not only I, but that any the youngest member of the profession would hesitate one moment in the fearless discharge of his paramount duty. I once before took leave to remind your lordships — which was unnecessary, but there are many whom it may be needful to remind — that an advocate, by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none othee. To save that client by all expedient means — to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to> himself — is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties ; and he must not regard the alarm, tlie suffering, the torment, the destruction which he may bring upon any other. Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on reck less of the consequences, if his fate it should un happily be, to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection ! " It was commonly supposed that Brougham meant — if necessary — to defend his illustrious client by exposing the conduct of the husband who was persecuting her; but this was not all which, in an extreme case, he purposed doing. The ground on which he then intended to take his stand was neither more nor less than an im peachment of the King's title, by proving that, having, in defiance of the law, gone through a ceremony of marriage with a Roman Catholic, Mrs. Fitzherbert, he was, by the Act of Settlement, declared to have forfeited the crown as completely as though, to quote the words of the Act, " he 292 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. were naturally dead." The adoption of this bold expedient would, as Brougham knew, have at once and conclusively put an end to the Bill of Pains and Penalties, being, as he says, "the announcement either that the King had ceased to be King, or that the other branches of the Legis lature must immediately inquire into the fact of the prohibited marriage, or that there must be a disputed succession, or, in other words, that civil war was inevitable." With this to fall back upon, the Queen's Attorney-General felt that the cause of his royal mistress was comparatively safe ; but, as he himself declared, he anticipated securing her a triumph without having recourse to such an extreme measure. The conclusion of his address — an address which had throughout, as Lord Minto wrote to the speaker's mother, " delighted and astonished the most sanguine of his friends " — ran as follows : — " Such then, my lords, is the case. And again let me call on you, even at the risk of repetition, never to dismiss for a moment from your minds the two great points upon which I rest my attack upon the evidence ; first, that the accusers have not proved the facts by the good witnesses who were within their reach, whom they had no shadow of pretext for not calling ; and, secondly, that the witnesses whom they have ventured to call are, every one of them, irreparably damaged in their credit. How, I again ask, is a plot ever to be discovered, except by the means of these two principles? Nay, there are instances in which plots have been discovered through the medium of the second principle when the first had happened to fail. When venerable witnesses have been seen brought forward — when persons above all suspicion have lent themselves for a season to CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 293 impure plans — when no escape for the guiltless ;seemed open, no chance of safety to remain — they have , almost providentially escaped from the same by the second of these two principles ; by the evidence breaking down where it was not expected to be sifted ; by a weak point being found where no provision, the attack being un foreseen, had been made to support it. Your lordships recollect that great passage — I say great, for it is poetically just and eloquent, even were it not inspired — in the sacred writings, where the Elders had joined themselves in a plot which had appeared to have succeeded ; ' for that,' as the Book says, ' they had hardened their hearts, and had turned away their eyes, that they might not look at Heaven, and that they might do the pur poses of unjust judgment.' But they, though, giving a clear, consistent, uncontradicted story, were disappointed, and their victim was rescued from their gripe by the trifling circumstance of a contradiction about a tamarisk tree. Let not man call those contradictions or those falsehoods which false witnesses swear to from heedless and needless falsehood — such as Sacchi about his •changing his name; or such as Demont about her letters ; such as Majocchi about the banker's clerk ; or such as all the other contradictions and false hoods, not going to the main body of the case, but to the main body of the credit of the wit nesses — let not man rashly and blindly call these things accidents. They are just rather than merciful dispensations of that Providence' which wills not that fhe guilty should triumph, and which favourably protects the innocent. " Such, my lords, is the case now before you ! Such is the evidence in support of this measure — evidence inadequate to prove a debt — impotent to 294 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. deprive of a civil right — ridiculous to convict of the lowest 'often ee — scandalous if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows — monstrous to ruin the honour, to blast the name, of an English Queen ! What shall I say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a Parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against this defenceless woman? My lords, I pray you to pause. I do earnestly beseech you to take heed ! You are standing upon the Drink of a precipice ; then beware ! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the Queen ! But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced, whieh, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who gave it. Saye the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe — save yourselves from this peril; rescue that country, of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer when severed from the people,. than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree. Save that country that you may continue to adorn it — save the Crown, which is in jeopardy — the artistocfacy, which is shaken — save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne. You have said, my lords, you have willed — the Church and the King have willed — that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplications at the throne of mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of their rulers deserve, and that your hearts. may be turned to justice ! " CAROLINE OP BRUNSWICK. 295 In a portion of this speech, Brougham quoted Milton's celebrated description of death, corn- Shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb. This quotation gave far more offence to the King than any other part of his proceedings. Personal vanity was not the least conspicuous of the many pleasing peculiarities exhibited by the First Gentle man in Europe. " No doubt," says Brougham, "the application was to him, but only the descrip tion of the head — What seemed his head, The likeness of a kingly crown had on — to show an impression that he was the true author of the proceedings. He said I might have at least spared him the attack upon his shape. He was more vain of his person and of his slim figure than of almost anything else ; and he said to Lord Donoughmore (Hutchinson's brother), who saw him daily, being a great friend, though not at all one of the Carlton House set, that he thought everybody allowed, whatever faults he might have, that his legs were not as I had described them. It was in vain that Donough more tried to convince him of the question only referring to the crown. He said he was certain I had heard of his piquing himself on his shape, and that I thought it would plague him to have it held up to ridicule ! " Accused of cruelty, heartlessness, and neglect ; declared by the public voice to have brokeD his faith and tarnished his honour — pronounced by his own trusty servant, the most noted peer in the realm, to have fallen so low that nothing could degrade him further — 296 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. all this Caroline's husband could bear with serene equanimity; but to impugn his physical graces — to cast a doubt on the elegance of his proportions, or utter a slander on the comeliness of his appear ance — was touching the vulnerable spot ; and the descendant of Plantagenets and Stuarts writhed under the imputation of unwieldiness as the keenest stab that could assail him ! Ably opened by Brougham's speech — apropos of which the Duke of Clarence, one of Caroline's . bitterest adversaries, said gracefully to the orator, " Of one thing I am quite sure ; whatever your client may be in other respects, she is not what you have represented her, a defenceless woman " — the Queen's defence progressed favourably. Colonel St. Leger, Lord Guildford, Lord Glen bervie, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, Dr. Holland, Mr Mills, and Mr. Keppel Craven gave highly favour able testimony as to the general propriety of the Princess of Wales' conduct. Some adverse evi dence was given by Lieutenants Hownam and Flynn, which proved that Caroline had more than once acted with senseless want of discretion, though nothing more culpable could be proved against her ; and there was no lack of testimony as to the purchasing of evidence by agents of the Crown. By the 30th of October all the witnesses had been examined, and Denman delivered his famous speech, which some of his admirers con sidered superior to Brougham's. It had been partly prepared at Holland House, and he was there instigated by Dr. Parr, the Queen's unflinch ing partizan, to draw a comparison between the King and Nero, and the Queen and Octavia — a comparison which gave exceeding offence to the King. Certainly no lack of audacity was apparent in either the Attorney or Solicitor-General of her CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 297 Majesty. Brougham's utterances have been already mentioned, and Denman was not less outspoken. In presence of the assembled peers of the realm he denounced as a calumniator the Duke of Clarence. "Come forth, thou slanderer ! " he exclaimed; "a denunciation," says Bush, "the more severe from the sarcasm with which it was done, and the turn of his eye towards its object." ¦" It is too prominent a fact," adds the same writer, "to be left unnoticed that the same advocate who so fearlessly uttered the above denunciation was made Attorney-General when the Prince of the Blood who was the object of it sat upon the throne, .and was subsequently raised to the still higher dignity of Lord Chief Justice." The Lords adjourned to the 2nd of November, and from that day until the 6th were engaged in debates on the evidence — debates which were almost as strong as any our Irish friends have treated us to in the Lower House in modern times. Everyone appeared to act on the grand principle of explaining their own views at such length as they thought good, and ignoring the explanations -of everyone else. " Earl Grey," says Mr. Bush, " declared that, if their lordships passed the Bill, it would prove the most disastrous step the House had ever taken. Earl Grosvenor said that, feeling as he did the evils which the erasure of the Queen's name from the Liturgy (a measure taken before her trial came on) was likely to entail upon the nation, as well as its repugnance to law and justice, he would, had he been Archbishop of Canterbury, have thrown the Prayer Book in the King's face sooner than have consented to it. On the other hand, the Duke of Montrose said, even after the ministers had abandoned the Bill, ihat, so convinced was he of her guilt, whatever 298 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. others might think to do, he, for one, would never acknowledge her as his Queen." If the discussions of the peers were excited, the popular mind was not less so. The whole- country rang with but one subject ; and " the Queen," whether as an object of censure or ad miration, was in everyone's mouth. The lower classes were, almost universally, vehemently in her favour. All the latent chivalry of the mob- was roused by the harsh treatment that had been dealt to her ; and this, coupled with the un popularity of the King — which was strong enough to endear anyone disliked by him to his lieges — made her the popular idol. Nor were the military less well-disposed towards her. " Much has been said," writes Lord Brougham, " of the feelings of" the troops. Of this we had remarkable proofs. The soldiers, like many of the people, considered that the Queen, as well as the King, was entitled to their allegiance. Indeed, ' God save the King and Queen ' was in former days a very common form of expression ; for instance, it was at the foot of all the playbills. I recollect a letter of my mother telling me with some alarm of a^ regiment of cavalry stopping on its march at Penrith, and hearing they were in my neighbour hood, they drank my health, but the Queen's, of course, with much more enthusiasm; and vowed 'they would fight up to their knees in blood for the Queen.' At one time the evidence against her appeared to be strong, and the impression unfavourable for a day, as on Majocchi's examina tion in chief. The Guards, in their undress trousers and foraging-caps, came at night to where they supposed the Queen was, or her family and friends, and they said, ' Never mind ; it may be going badly, but, better or worse, we are alE CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 299" with you ! '" It was also noticed that when the mob hissed those peers known to be adverse to the Queen, the soldiers showed unmistakable signs of agreement. The King meantime was endeavouring to mitigate his anxieties in the society of the Marchioness of Conyngham. It was either at this period or shortly after that he presented her with a magnificent sapphire, an heir-loom of the Stuarts, which had been given him by the Cardinal of York, the last of the ill-fated race. In an access of parental fondness, George had given it to his daughter, but, on her death, he reclaimed it, as a Crown jewel ; and the first use he made of the royal gem which his dead child had worn was to deck with it the beauty of his high-born and therefore doubly degraded favourite. .. The Queen, whom this injured husband was so anxious to punish for the presumed breaking of her marriage vows, had meantime received a visit which gave both her and her party much gratifi cation. Prince Leopold, her son-in-law, came to pay his homage to his young wife's mother. The King did his best to hinder such a courtesy ; "but," wrote the Prince himself, many years later, "how abandon entirely the mother of Princess Charlotte, who, though she knew her mother well, loved her very much ? " The Prince determined not to interfere till the evidence against the Queen should be closed, so that whatever he might do could not influence the evidence. This decision was evidently the most honest and the most impartial. He waited till the evidence was closed and then paid a visit to his mother-in-law at Brandenburgh House. She received him kindly ; looked very strange, and said strange things. The country was in a state of incredible excite ment, and this visit was a great card for the' "300 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. Queen The King, who had been, it must be confessed, much maltreated during this sad trial, was furious, and particularly against Prince Leopold. He never forgave it ; being very vindictive, though he occasionally showed kinder sentiments, particularly during Mr. Canning's being Minister. He, of course, at first declared that he would never see the Prince again. How ever, the Duke of York arranged an interview. The King could not resist his curiosity, and got Prince Leopold to tell him how Queen Caroline was dressed, and all sorts of details." * On the Gth of November the House divided, and the second reading of the Bill was carried by 123 to 95 — giving the Ministers a majority of 28. The Queen at once protested against the pro ceeding, concluding her remonstrance with the words : " She now most deliberately, and before God, asserts that she is wholly innocent of the crime laid to her charge, and she awaits with unabated confidence the final result of this un paralleled investigation." As she signed the document she exclaimed, with a characteristic flash of her indomitable spirit, " There ! Caroline Regina in spite of them ! " The next proceeding of the House was to go into committee on the divorce clause. This clause had all along been distasteful to many of the peers, and was especially so to the Bishops. The Ministers had moved its omission ; but Caroline's party perceiving that, were it abandoned, the -spiritual lords and many nobles who were now opposed to the Bill would then be more favourably inclined to it, voted against it ; and the Ministers, who were thrown into a minority on the point, * "Reminiscences of King Leopold." (Early "Years of the Trince Consort.) CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 301 moved the third reading of the Bill with the clause retained. The result was 108 votes for, and 99 against it. Mr. Brougham was standing on the steps of the throne conversing with Croker as the votes were taken. " On the number being an nounced," he wrote, "I said, 'There is an end of your Bill.' ' Why so ? ' asked Croker. 1 an swered, ' Because the majority is the number of the Ministers and high officers in this House, and it won't do to pass such a Bill by their votes ! ' " His prediction proved true ; and on the 10th the Bill was abandoned, Lord Liverpool confessing that the majority was too small to enable Ministers to act upon it. This abandonment of the Bill was, in truth, not an exceeding subject of triumph for either side. The ministers had indeed gained a majority, but so small a one that it was practically useless ; and the Queen, though she was saved from the de privation of her rank and privileges that she would have suffered had the Bill been carried out,. had yet had her reputation irretrievably stained, and her name dragged through the mire. Even had an overwhelming majority voted in her favour, and expressed their belief in her entire innocence, her fair fame must needs have been tarnished by such an ordeal ; and as it was, no public expres sion of confidence in her blamelessness had been uttered at all, and the pains and penalties threatened against her were only not enforced be cause the Government deemed it wiser not to face the storm of public disapproval such a course would have elicited. When told the Bill was abandoned, the Queen was in her withdrawing- room at the House of Lords. She seemed at first confused by the intelligence, and received it in utter silence. Almost immediately she prepared 302 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. to return home. An eye-witness relates how he met her as she left her apartment, preceded by her usher. " She had a dazed look, more tragical than consternation. She passed me. The usher pushed open the folding doors of the great staircase ; she began to descend, and I followed instinctively two or three steps behind her. She was evidently all shuddering, and she took hold of the bannisterj pausing for a moment. Oh, that sudden clutch with which she caught the railing! Never say again to me that any actor can feel like a principal. It was a visible manifestation of unspeakable grief — an echoing of the voice of the soul. Four or five persons came in from below before she reached the bottom of the stairs. I think Alder man Wood was one of them." Whatever Caroline herself might think, the public chose to take the throwing out of the Bill as the triumph of her cause, and went almost wild with delight. The feeling, not only in London, but throughout the country, has been described as " beyond the scope of record." " No business all day in the City," writes Brougham, " and now all is illuminated, even more than after Waterloo ; " while from Cambridge young Macaulay wrote in rapturous terms to his father as soon as the news was known. " All here is ecstasy. ' Thank God the country is saved,' were my first words when I caught a glimpse of the papers of Friday night. ' Thank God, the country is saved,' is written on every face and echoed by ' every voice. Even the symptoms of popular violence, three days ago so terrific, are now displayed with good-humour and received with cheerfulness. Instead of curses on the Lords, on every post and every wall is written, ' All is as it should be,' 'Justice done at last,' and similar mottoes expressive of the sudden turn of CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 303 public feeling." The Ministers themselves were not sorry to be quit of a measure which was in itself harsh and repulsive, and which, taking the Sovereign's not altogether untarnished life into consideration, seemed a literal exemplification of the homely old proverb of " pot calling the kettle black." Perhaps the only person not glad to be rid of it was the King; and his disappointment was unfeigned. After the trouble and expense he had incurred in his efforts to blacken his wife's name, it did seem hard that his endeavours should fail just as they came to fruition. His consort was, as she had triumphantly observed,- " Caroline Regina," nor could he deprive her of the privilege, appertaining to that rank ; but there was still one thing that could yet be done ; and that was to render her a Queen without a Court. "Carlton House now took the course," says Lord Brougham, " of filling the press with libels to deter all ladies from visiting the Queen. Papers were established for the avowed purpose of attacking every woman of rank who accepted her invitations. Carlton House was thrown open at the same time to such as refused to visit the Queen; and I hesitate not to declare that this course was perfectly successful, not merely with the women, but also with their male relations, so as, to my certain knowledge, to influence their votes in both Houses. They both were unwilling to expose their wives and sisters to a slanderous press, and averse to losing for them the balls at Carlton House. The Queen bore it all with great patience, and even good-humour. She used to say, ' Oh, it is all in the common course. People go to different inns : one goes to the King's Head, another to the Angel.'" Her patience be tokened no loss of spirit, however, for the Bill was hardly withdrawn when she wrote to Lord Liver- 304 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. pool, demanding to be furnished with a residence and provision suitable to her rank. In reply she was told that it was not the King's pleasure she should live in any of the royal palaces, but that the allowance she had hitherto enjoyed would be continued till the next meeting of Parliament.- Whereupon the Queen, undaunted, addressed the Premier again. "The Queen requests Lord Liverpool to inform his Majesty of the Queen's in tention to present herself next Thursday in person at the King's Drawing-room, to have the oppor tunity of presenting a petition to his Majesty for obtaining her rights." The Ministers thought Caroline quite capable of carrying out her resolve, and accordingly drew up the following minute for the King's instruction : — " If the Queen should decline delivering her petition into any hands but the King's, the King should not be advised to permit her to come up to the Drawing-room, but should himself go down to the room where the Queen is, attended by such of his household and his ministers as may be there, and receive the petition." Her Majesty was, however, probably warned by her advisers of the utter fruitlessness of any such effort ; and the intended visit was never carried out. Parliament was to be shortly pro rogued, and the Queen, determined, before that occurred, to appeal to it for her just rights. Perhaps she thought that there she was at all events sure of a hearing. Her Solicitor-General was sent to the Commons with her message. "The House," says Dr. Doran, "probably never presented such a scene as that disgraceful one of the night of the 23rd of November. Mr. Denman stood with the Queen's letter in his hand ; he was perfectly in order, but the Speaker chose rather to i>bey that brought by the usher of the Black Bod, CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 305 Summoning the members to attend at the bar of the Lords and listen to the prorogation. The Speaker hurried out of the House, and the Queen's message was virtually flung into the street. The public, however, knew that its chief object was to announce the Queen's refusal of any allowance or accommodation made to her as by ministerial bounty. She still claimed the restoration of her name to the Liturgy, and a revenue becoming her recognized rank as Queen-Consort." Generous even to foolishness as she usually was, the Queen occasionally showed a reluctance to pay her just debts in an amusingly illogical manner. Of this Lord Brougham gives a characteris tic instance in his " Autobiography." " Upon the defeat of the bill," he says, " for divorcing the Queen, I waited upon her to communicate the event, and tender my congratulations. She said, ' There is a sum of £7,000 at Douglas Kinnaird's (her bankers), which I desire you will accept for yourself, giving £400 of it to the other counsel.* This, I of course, refused, saying that we all received, or should receive, the usual fees, and could not take anything further. She insisted on my telling my colleagues, which I said I should, as a matter of course, but that I was certain they would refuse, as I had done. Next day, when I again waited upon her, she recurred to the subject, and asked if I had told them that she laid her commands upon us. I said I had told them so distinctly, and that they all refused with the greatest respect, and a full sense of her kind intentions. She asked what could be the reason of it all, and -I endeavoured to explain that the professional etiquette made it impossible. She still was disconcerted, and said lawyers were unaccountable people. A few weeks after Kin- VOL. III. X 306 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. naird, when he took his account to her, suggested that the salaries of her law officers were in arrear, never having been paid. She refused peremptorily to have them paid, saying ' the Queen must pay her debts before she pays her Attorney and Solicitor- General.' The sum due was under £200, and she had been pressing £7,000 upon us ! This arrear, as well as all the other professional emoluments, but on the ordinary scale, were paid by the Treasury after her death, among the expenses of the cause. In consequence of the absurd reports spread in the country that a room at Brougham had been built by the Queen after the trial (there having not been a room built but only a battlement added to a very ancient room), I may add that I never re ceived any present whatever from her, except a magnificent copy of Dante (the great Florentine edition) , in which Dr. Parr wrote an inscription that has been the subject of much criticism." Caroline had publicly taken the sacrament at the parish church of Hammersmith — a proceeding believed by many to be a strong proof of her innocence ; and it is indeed difficult to imagine that, however lamentably her religious education had been neglected, she would have dared to par ticipate in that holy rite with the knowledge of guilt weighing on her soul. Her friends were now exceedingly anxious that she should go solemnly to St. Paul's to return thanks for her escape from the proceedings of the Ministers. She herself was not at all desirous of doing so, as Lord Brougham observes, and he adds, as an instance of how everything she did or did not do was turned against her, that a letter of his, describing the difficulty her advisers had in pre vailing on her to attend. St. Paul's, fell into the hands of a servant of the Duke of York. "I CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 307 lad observed," he said, " how false the belief was that she was so fond of popular demonstra tions ; and I said it was with great difficulty that we could get her to St. Paul's. This was put into some person's hands for the purpose of being printed., and of showing how disrespectfully her lawyers talked of her. I do not recollect what the letter called her, but the slandermonger who used it thought it would be the better if a word were added, and he put in 'sober,' it being one of the many lies told about her that she was given. to drink — a thing which had at no time of her life the shadow of foundation. Lady Charlotte Lindsay was beset by persons to find out the fact respecting this ridiculous charge, and always gave the same answer, as did all her ladies, and Mr. Darner, who lived a great deal with her." The Queen was finally persuaded to go in state to St. Paul's for a thanksgiving which was to differ sadly, both in matter and form, from the solemn services attended by Queen Anne and good old George III., and still more so from that beautiful and glorious festival when another and far happier Princess of Wales went with her husband and their Mother and Queen to testify their gratitude for the gift of that precious life which had so long hung trembling in the balance. The 29th of .November was the day selected by Caroline, and due notice was given to the Cathedral authorities ; bub these latter, under pressure of higher authorities than they, did all they could to impede the proposed ceremony. They resolved that no change should be made in the ordinary service; no recognition testified of the Queen's presence ; that, if she chose to come, she and the mob should enter indiscriminately; and that the' safety of the Cathedral, which they thought, or 308 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. professed to think, would be endangered by her Majesty's presence, should be made the responsi bility of the Mayor and Corporation. The Dean moreover prophesied that the people would make a "saturnalia" of the occasion — a prophecy which proved disappointingly false, as all classes behaved with exceeding decorum, although they received the Queen with the warmest enthusiasm. " The circumstance," says Dr. Doran, "was really solemn, but there were matters about it that robbed it of some of its solemnity. It was solemn to see a queen proceeding ¦ alone, as it may be said, but through myriads of people, to acknowledge publicly the mercies of Heaven. Lady Anne Hamilton was her solitary English female attendant ; but every woman who witnessed her progress either praised or pitied her that day. Her ' procession ' was made up of very slender material, though all her Court followed her in the person of Mr. Vice- Chamberlain Craven. This little company, how ever, was swollen by numerous additions on the way; members of parliament, among others, Sir Bobert Wilson, Mr. Hume, and Mr. John Cam Hobhouse, lent some dignity by their presence. Horsemen fell into the line, vehicles of every degree took up their following, and the ' trades * marshalled themselves either in joining the march or drawing up to greet the pious Queen as she passed upon her way. Among these, perhaps, the solemnity most suffered. Some very ill-favoured individuals shouted for her Majesty beneath the banners which declared, ' Thus shall it be done to the woman whom the people delight to honour.' The Braziers added a joke to the occasion by raising a flag over their position at the end of Bridge Street, on which it was recorded that ' The Queen's Guards are Men of Metal.' " CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 309 The service in the Cathedral differed in no wise from the ordinary form of Morning Prayer. No special thanksgiving on the Queen's behalf was introduced. " It was, however, imperative upon the clergy officiating to read the parenthetical ¦clause in the General Thanksgiving Prayer which has immediate reference to the individual who desires to make an offering of human gratitude to God. This clause, however, was omitted. The Queen-Consort of England was upon her knees upon the floor of the Cathedral, but the officiating minister virtually looked up to Him, and standing between Caroline and her Creator, exclaimed, ' Lord, she is not here ! ' The omission of the clause was tantamount to this." * She still possessed some trusty friends, and occasionally entertained them. Mr. Grey-Bennett thus mentions one of the parties. " I dined on Saturday, the 17th inst., with the Queen at •Brandenburgh House. The party consisted ofthe Duke of Bedford, Lord Grey, Lord Nugent, my brother, Ossulston-Lampton, and Lady Louisa Brougham, Mr. Lushington, Alderman Wood, Sir M. Fergusson, Mr. Denman, Lord A. Hamilton, Madame Oldi, Madame Fabrici, Major Antaldi, .and two or three other Italian gentlemen. The dinner was good and agreeable, the Queen very civil and free, and evidently more at her ease and more tranquil within than she was when I dined there before Christmas. She, as usual, by. her natural gait of a bad manner, with a short, fat,, chumpy, ill-dressed figure, and by endeavouring,' to look tall and young, contrived, by several strange and curious movements, to be the very reverse of a Queen ; but no one who studied the i-manner, such as it was, but must have been con- * Dr. Doran. 310 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. vinced how easily an unpardonable interpretation might be given, and yet how unjust and ill-founded such construction might be. The poor lady soon began to discover that her troubles were by no means over, although public disgrace had been averted from her. Address upon address poured in, congratulating her on what her friends looked on as a victory ; but her income had never been settled since her accession to the title — in her case but an empty one — of Queen ; and even her enemies began to perceive that some arrangement must be made. Accord ingly the King in his speech at the reopening of Parliament in January, 1821, suggested, reluc tantly, and looking "very black," that some provision should be made for her. The Queen declared her intention of refusing any such provision unless it were accompanied by the re storation of her name in the Prayer Book. This was not her own resolution, and she was at first very unwilling to act upon the advice given her. "I went in the morning," says Mr. Grey- Bennett, "to take up an address from the people of Manchester to the Queen, signed by 9,000 persons. We found there Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Milton, and Mr. William Eussell, Sir William Eowley, Sir G. Anson, Mr. Pym, Mr. Whitbread,. and many others of the House of Commons, all with addresses. Lady Anne Hamilton said to me, ' This, indeed, is a Queen's levee.' Brougham came home with Lampton and myself, and showed us the communication of the Queen refusing the money ; he said that with great difficulty he had persuaded her to sign it, and showed us a letter from her to him on the preceding Sunday, in which she said, ' that she thought she ought not to refuse the only act of kindness and consideration CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 311 which the King had shown his subjects since his accession to the throne.' Brougham, however, persevered, and convinced her she had nothing left but to sign the paper, and that the country would stand by her." The demand was decisively vetoed by the Government, and Caroline then accepted the £50,000 a-year offered without further demur. "The Queen wrote a letter," says Mr. Grey- Bennett, " a few days back to Lord Liverpool, accepting the £50,000 a-year, and returning thanks to the King for it. This letter she wrote of her own accord, consulting no one, not even Alderman Wood, who, aware of her intention, and wishing to throw an impediment in the way, took off in his pocket Lord Liverpool's letter to her, announc ing the parliamentary grant, and the King's con sent to the bill. He told me he had advised her to consult Denman as to the terms of the letter (Brougham being out of town on the circuit) , but she did no such thing. The Ministers are very triumphant at this act, and the letter is very unworthy of her, the expressions being by far too humble, and the tone not at all that of defiance, which it was the duty she owed to herself at all times to take. They and their friends now say, ' She will go abroad immediately, and that she has given up Brougham, etc., etc., etc' She has," to my mind, done another foolish thing, and when she acts of herself she seldom does a wise one." The letter itself, written in her Majesty's original English, ran as follows : — " Brandenbourgh House, 3the of March, 1821. " The Queen having been informed through the midium of Lord Liverpool, namely, that parlement had voted a Provision for the Queen, and that the sum agreed to by the two Houses of Parlement 312 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. would be ready for the immediate use of the ¦Queen, she find herself under the necessity of accepting it, with a sense of gratitude towards the King, having been proposed by his Majesty himself at the opening of Parlement ; and the 'Queen is only anxious to show to the King that She wishesse to Beceived from Him, and not from a mere Party Spirit. The Queen at the same time thinks herself authorized to look upon this messure as the first act of Justice of his Majesty towards the Queen. She also add that she most entertains the flattering expectation that the same sentimens ef Justice which has prevailed in her favour will also effect upon the Heart of the King, by plaicing her name in the Liturgi as Queen, as such having been the Bights and Custom of Her Predecessors. 'The Queen can never forget what difficulties, and a great deal of troubles She has undergone on that account upon the Continent by having her Name been omitted in the Liturgi, and in consequence She deed not Beceived the Honour which where due to the Queen, as the Consort to the King of England. " Justice is the basis of happiness for Kings, and the good judgment of his Majesty will point it out to him the Methods by which he will accelerate the wish of his People, and the satis faction of the Queen on this subject, and the Queen has not the least doubt but that the King will, taking into his consideration the Queen's situation, and to act accordingly with that gene rosity which Characterizes a great Mind. Under such circumstances the Queen submit herself in- tierly to his Majesty's decesion." For her acceptance of the pension Caroline was greatly blamed by many of her partizans; but CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 313 -necessity has no law; and as those who most censured her would have been the last to assist her, and she found that under no other condition could she be provided for, it is hardly to be wondered at that she finally yielded. High- spirited as she was, the unequal combat must by this time have proved almost too much for her ; and she must have felt that to struggle longer against an antagonist who had all the power on his side, was a hopeless task. To say that through- cut this peculiarly trying time her behaviour was uniformly prudent would not be true. " It must be admitted," says Brougham, " that she did not act with discretion. Difficult as it would have been to avoid all errors in her pecu liarly hard position, she was far too free of access, and invited persons to her table who came there for no other purpose than to gossip and laugh at her. Against this she was warned ; but, indeed, the reports carefully circulated by her enemies, that she had formed an acquaintance with certain individuals, should have been warning enough. Of these Lady Oxford was the chief. In 1814 they had put about these reports, and at the time of the rumours confidently asserting her intimacy, I can most positively affirm that she had never even seen her. She soon after saw a great deal of her abroad, and was not deterred by the eagerness of fhe Carlton House set to find that it was so. The same kind of things continually occurred in 1820 -and the following spring. She passed her time very uncomfortably, in consequence of constant vexations arising from the scandalous newspapers and the reports in society, most of which were purposely brought to her knowledge, in the hope of wearing her out, and making her again go abroad. Among the tricks practised, there were 314 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. thefts of her papers and letters as well as of letters- in other people's possession." The libels had the effect of making her wish to leave England again, as their inventors had anticipated, and she had some thoughts at one time of a tour in Scotland, though the idea of another sojourn in Switzerland seemed, on the whole, most to her taste ; but all desire of quitting the country came abruptly to an end when the first rumours of the approaching coronation of the King began to make themselves heard. At that time Caroline was living at Cambridge House, South Audley Street, an es tablishment she had formed since the settlement of her income, though she still retained her Hammersmith residence. Though she had been forced to accept the omission of her name in the Liturgy, she was by. no means inclined to forego the ceremony which would make her queen ship undoubted and unassailable in the eyes of all;. and she was as eager for the proposed rite as George himself. More so she could hardly be ; for the King seemed completely absorbed in the contemplation of the coming spectacle, and of his own appearance thereat. "Never," says Dr. Doran, " did sovereign labour as George IV. laboured to give eclat to the entire ceremony. He passed days and nights with his familiar friends in discussing questions of dress, colours, fashions, and effects. His own costume was to him a subject of intense anxiety, and when. his costly habits were completed, so desirous was he to witness their effect that, according to the gossip of the day, a Court gossip that was not groundless, his Majesty had one of his own servants attired in the royal garments, and the King" contemplated with considerable satisfaction. the sight of a menial pacing up and down the CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 315 room in a monarch's garb." Caroline's first step was to write to Lord Liverpool, claiming her right to share the forthcoming ceremony, in a note whose construction proves that it was her own unaided act. " Brandenbourgh House, "29th of April, 1821. "The Queen from circumstances being obliged to remain in England, she requests the King will be pleased to command those Ladies of the first Rank his Majesty may think the most proper in this Realms to attend the Queen on the day of the Coronation, of which her Majesty is in formed is now fixed, and also to name such Ladies which will be required to bear Her Majesty's Train on that day. The Queen being particularly anxious to submit to the good taste of His Majesty, most earnestly entreats the King to inform the Queen in what Dresse the King wishes the Queen to appear in, on that day, at the Coronation." The Premier answered this communication by announcing to the Queen that the King had resolved that her Majesty should neither share in or behold the Coronation. Still undaunted, Caroline suc ceeded in obtaining a hearing for her legal advisers before the Privy Council, where ihey pleaded her cause in presence of a large audience, Lord Harrowby being in the chair. " Denman and I," says Brougham, " argued the case at the bar for the claim, the Attorney and Solicitor-General (Giffard and Copley) against it ; and the decision was, that as the Queen was living separate from the King, she had no right to be crowned ; and thus it was left to the King to re fuse it. This was manifestly a political judgment,., 316 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. entirely influenced by what had taken place the year before ; for we showed, by the clearest proofs, that there was no instance whatever of a Queen not being crowned, except one, when she was abroad ; and another, when there was a differ ence of religion, and she declined it, but none what ever of a Queen-consort not being crowned when she was within the realm, of the same religion with the King, and willing to be crowned. My own im pression was that the lay lords, not being in office — and even Lord Harrowby, though in office — were inclined to our case ; but that the lay lords, including the judges, were against us — those judges who had taken a very decided part against us in the Lords as assessors to the House, and had done themselves as little credit as possible in their answers to the legal questions put to them, the most important of which has been disapproved by all lawyers since, and declared to be erroneous by late statutes — so much so that ' the rule in the Queen's case ' has been a strong topic of ridicule in the profession." The adverse decision was transmitted by the Privy Council to Lord Hood for conveyance to his royal mistress ; but though its purport both mortified and disappointed her, she was resolved not to utterly relinquish her purpose. If she could not be crowned, she would at all events, she determined, be present at the ceremony; and she caused Lord Sidmouth to be informed that she would appear at the Abbey on the 19th of July, the day fixed for the Coronation, and demanded that a suitable place should be provided for her. The peer addressed replied to h.er note by a letter commencing " Madam," and lacking the writer's signature, in which he in formed her that it was not the King's pleasure to .comply with her application. Thereupon the CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 317 Queen requested the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, to order persons to be in attendance to conduct her to her seat. The Duke passed on this note to Lord Howard of Effingham, the " acting Earl Marshal " on the eventful day, and the latter, more courteous in his manner of addressing Caroline than many of his colleagues, " made his humble representations to her Majesty of the impossibility, under existing circumstances, of having the honour of obeying her Majesty's commands." She wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, expressing her desire to be crowned the day after the King, before the preparations made for his coronation had been done away with ; but the Primate only replied that he was the servant of the King, and was ready to obey any commands he received from his master. Foiled once more, the Queen issued a protest against such treatment, addressed to the King,. from whom, as she said, "the Queen has ex perienced only the bitter disappointment of every hope she had indulged; but in the attachment of the people she has found that powerful and decided protection which has ever been her ready support and unfailing consolation." All her efforts were, as she found, useless ; but she had the poor consolation of knowing that her husband was, as Brougham says, " beyond mea sure alarmed" at her determination, and that apprehension as to what she might be roused to do had considerably marred the pleasing anticipa tion of the coming pageant. Her health had suffered much from all the agitation and excite ment of the past year, and her friends hoped that for all reasons she would now, having asserted her claims and done her best to enforce them, be con tent to remain quiescent ; " but," says Dr. Doran, 318 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. " even they did not know of what metal she was made. . . . She was like the sick gladiator, deter mined to stand in the arena, trusting to the chance of striking an effective blow and yet almost assured that defeat was certain." Wilful to the last, she refused to hear any remonstrances, and rashly determined to be present in the Abbey, whether she were granted permission or not. Her resolve became known; and when the 19th of July dawned, "everyone," says Lord Elden, " went in the morning with very uncomfortable feelings and dread." Even the lower classes, with whom her popularity had been so great, and on whose attachment she so much relied, were opposed to her appearance. The fickle gust of public favour had veered round for the worse from her to her husband. The public was awed and impressed by the superfluous magnificence they had been promised to witness during the day ; and " a com bination of feelings not altogether unusual, and not creditable to the judgment of the English people, produced a complete reaction in favour of the successful husband against the unsuccessful wife."* In this case, as in most others, the aphorism held true, that " nothing succeeds like success." But the poor Queen guessed little of this ; she had made up her mind, and was resolved to go through with her project, come what might. Her more judicious friends had endeavoured to persuade her to relinquish all idea of such an attempt ; but when they found her inflexible they could only advise that, were such an enterprize undertaken, it should be carried out with decision and firmness. They might, indeed, have spared themselves the trouble of remonstrance, fir no one was more self-willed than Queen Caroline, when * Dean Stanley. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 319 :she once determined on any course of action, or more impervious to either intimidation or en treaty. At six on the morning of the Coronation Day the poor lady, attended by Lord and Lady Hood and Lady Anne Hamilton, drove in a carriage drawn by six horses from South Audley Street to Dean's "Yard. She was but little cheered by the people, who received her coldly, in striking con trast to their demeanour when she went to St. Paul's. " Within the precincts at that hour there were as yet but a few of the Abbey officials on the alert. One of them was standing in the West Cloister when he saw the Queen approach, ac companied by Lord Hood. Just at the point where the Woodfall monument is now placed, they encountered a gentleman, in court costume, belonging to the opposite party, who hissed re peatedly in her face. Whilst Lord Hood mo tioned him aside with a deprecatory gesture, she passed on into the North Cloister, and thence to the East Cloister door, the only one on that side available, where she was repelled by two stalwart porters, who (in the absence of our modern police) were guarding the entrance. She then hastened back, and crossed the great plat form in St. Margaret's Churchyard, erected for the outside procession. It was observed by those who watched her closely that her under lip quivered incessantly, the only mark of agitation. She thus reached the regular approach by Poet's Corner."* Here the door-keeper demanded to see her ticket. Lord Hood represented that to a person of her rank a ticket was needless, but the door-keeper was firm. " This is your Queen ! " cried Lord Hood. " Yes, I am your Queen ; will * Dean Stanley. 320 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. you admit me ? " added the unhappy Caroline- But the official persisted that without a ticket none could be allowed to enter. Lord Hood possessed one, which he offered to the Queen, and for a moment she seemed inclined to take it ; but flinching — " I verily believe," says Brougham,, " for the first time in her life " — she refused, hysterically laughing, to enter without her ladies. At that moment Sir Robert Inglis, who was specially charged to keep order, appeared. " Madam," he said to the Queen, who was leaning on Lord Hood's arm, " it is my duty to announce to your Majesty that there is no place in the Abbey prepared for your Majesty." The Queen paused. " Am I to understand," she said, " that you prevent me from entering the Abbey?" "Madam," answered Sir Robert, in the same words, "it is my duty to announce to you that there is no place provided for your Majesty in the Abbey." The Queen looked round, as if half expecting some help or suggestion from the people, but she found nothing but blank unre sponsiveness. Her presence would mar the coming show; they rather wished her gone. Lord Hood proposed that she should return home. Without a word she turned away, and as she entered her carriage she was seen weeping. "Her old coach man, it is said, had for the first time that morning harnessed the horses reluctantly, conscious that the attempt would be a failure."* The gorgeous procession and ceremony, followed by the yet more gorgeous feast succeeded each other in glittering splendour; George attitudinized to his heart's content; and Caroline went back to her lonely home, her brave spirit broken at last. She made one last effort, writing in the evening to the * Dean Stanley. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 321 Duke of Norfolk, demanding, "in consequence of the insult that morning," to be crowned alone within a week ; the preparations, as she said, being ready, the nation would be saved expense. She wrote in the same strain to the Archbishop ; but, as, poor lady, she must have expected, both appeals were useless. Denman went to see her a few evenings later, and found her laughing, dancing, and romping, with a large party ; "but he saw that her spirits were frightfully over strained." It was literally true that the Corona tion killed her. Her husband, justly elated by his success in this last indignity, was in the most gracious and urbane of humours, and gave a grand banquet at Carlton House, to which all his brothers were invited, save the Duke of Sussex, who had displayed too much sympathy for the unhappy Queen to be received by her illus trious consort. The latter was not, however, to be called upon to endure the knowledge of her existence much longer. He had chafed under it sorely already, and had once had his hopes aroused only to be cruelly frustrated. " Sire, your greatest enemy is dead ! " cried a courtier when the news came of Napoleon's decease. " Is she, by God ? " was the gracefully agitated exclamation of the affected husband. This time he was not again to be disappointed. Only once after the Coronation did the Queen appear in public, at Drury Lane Theatre, and even then she was manifestly ill. She made herself worse by taking opiates to soothe the pain she suffered. " There was," Sir Henry Holland says, " a strange sort of irrational bravery in her nature, which made her disregard all common precau tions, not merely as to public opinion, but even VOL. III. * 322 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. when personal risk was concerned. An acute inflammation had gone on for a couple of days without any attempt at checking it. She went, as we have seen, to the theatre; and it was on an accidental visit of her physician, Dr. Holland, that the first notice was taken of the malady."* On August 2nd a bulletin was issued from Brandenburgh House, signed by W. G. Maten, F. Warren, and H. Holland, announcing that she was suffering from a dangerous obstruction. She suffered much, gave herself up directly, and bore herself patiently and even cheerfully. One of her first acts was to direct a female foreign attendant to burn a diary which she had at one time kept, con taining the characters of various distinguished persons with whom she had come in contact. Mr. Denman visited her, and, says Mr. Fitzgerald, " describes what he saw with much true feeling. She lay on a sofa, a handkerchief round her head, her face flushed, her eyes bright, while she gave instructions for her will. From the first she had but little hope, and indeed was eager to quit the world that had been so troubled for her ; and Lord Hood assured Mr. Denman that the speech reported in the newspapers was often on her lips : ' I, shall quit life without regret.' She was con stant and cheerful throughout, even heroic, with out being theatrical." On the 4th Mr. Brougham, who left the bedside of his sick child to visit her, arrived, was with her half an hour, and thought her case had assumed a decidedly more favourable aspect. Her hand and voice were, he found, as firm as he had ever seen anyone's in good health, and her pulse was good. She was very calm and composed, and spoke of the danger quietly. Brougham told her of her doctors' renewed hopes. * Percy Fitzgerald. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 323 " Oh, no, my dear Mr. Brougham," she said; "'I shall not recover ; and I be much better dead, for I be tired of this life." She signed her will, gave all orders she wished observed, and spoke charitably of all. On the 5th the favourable symptoms disappeared, and it was evident that the case was hopeless. "She grew suddenly worse," says Mr. Fitzgerald, "and towards even ing an access of fever coming on, she with much Vehemence of manner and excitement denounced the conspiracies and persecution that had attended her, but presently became calm. Seeing Dr. Holland beside her, she said with a smile : ' Well, my dear doctor, what do you think now? ' " Dr. Lushington and Dr. Wilde, whom she had appointed her executors, were admitted to see he? . " She was then," says Brougham, " in no pain, mortification having commenced, and she had altogether lost her head. She talked incessantly on every subject for three hours ; and it is very remarkable that the only persons she mentioned were the ' Petite Yictorine,' Bergami's child, and the child of Parson Wood,* which she had taken one of her fancies for. While at Hammersmith she had made him her chaplain, and caused Lord and Lady Hood to quit their places of Lord of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes in order to appoint Wood, and his wife, who had not the proper rank, and indeed were in all respects un fit for the situation. This is the only bad thing I can recollect her doing in the management of her household or other affairs, for the Hoods had been most invaluable friends and servants, stand ing by her through all her troubles, and behaving on every occasion with the most admirable delicacy, as well as tact. But she could not con- * Son of Alderman Wood. 324 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. trol her fancy for Wood's child, which amounted almost to a craze. She would have it brought to play with her, not only at all hours of the day, but- even of the night, as she often sat up till a very late hour." Early on the morning of the 7th she sank into a stupor, and at half -past ten, a.m., after, as the bulletin announced, "an entire absence of sense and faculty for more than two hours," the troubled and chequered life came to an end, and the repudiated wife and Queen of the Fourth George passed away almost without a struggle, in the presence of her tried friends, Lord and Lady Hood, and Lady Anne Hamilton. " Some Methodists were singing hymns on the river opposite her house, and, as they raised their voices, a violent gust of wind burst open the door of her room. At that moment she expired."* She had completed her fifty-third year three months before, and had perhaps experienced as many troubles, mortifications, and insults, as could be compressed into the space of time indicated. " If," says Mr. Fitzgerald, " we can trust the profuse accounts of her conversations, one of her last acts was to declare her forgiveness of Dumont's calumnies. Mr. Wilde, afterwards Lord Chancellor, was with her to the last, and told Mr. Denman in her delirium the name of Bergami was never mentioned. The excitement and grief of Hammersmith during these events was prodigious — expresses passing and repassing,. the people crowding at the gates to learn the news. The whole kingdom was profoundly moved. Lord Castlereagh's blunt opinion was, that it was to be regarded as the greatest of all possible de liverances for his Majesty and the country." Her will, when read, was found to leave what. * Percy Fitzgerald. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 325 little property she had to dispose of to young Austin, with remembrances to many of her friends and servants. It moreover contained the follow ing clause, " I desire and direct that my body be not opened, and that three days after my death it be carried to Brunswick for interment, and that fhe inscription on my coffin be, ' Here lies Caro line of Brunswick, the injured Queen of Eng land.' " Some debts, and £15,000 for her house .she recommended to the care of the Government. * CHAPTER VH. Preparations for the Queen's funeral — Progress of the corUge — Disgraceful scenes — Embarkation at Harwich— Journey from Cuxhaven to Brunswick — The funeral ceremony — Oration of the Pastor Woolf — Libel on the dead Queen — Her character. The King was in Ireland at the time of Caroline's death, and the Ministers, receiving no orders con cerning the funeral, except to allow no honours to be paid, and to prevent the procession passing through the City, announced that they would pay all respect to the wishes of the late Queen, and would forthwith despatch the body to Harwich for embarkation. This unseemly haste, so strangely contrasting with the persistence with which Caroline's wishes had always been thwarted during her life, was protested against by Lady Hood, in % letter, addressed, as she said, not so much to Lord Liverpool as to his heart. She pleaded for delay, on the ground that the late Queen's ladies were unprepared, and specially entreated that the military escort might be dispensed with, as it was an honour never granted her royal mistress during life, and assuredly never desired by one so well guarded by the love of the people. She was answered, that the arrangements made could not be altered, and that those ladies who had not pro cured their mourning at the time the procession started could follow, and catch it up on its route to Harwich. So little courtesy was shown the mourners that they were unable to learn by what route the corpse would be conveyed to Harwich. The most direct way was through the City, and naturally supposing that would be the line selected. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK/ 327 for the journey, the Mayor and Corporation i an nounced their intention of attending the dead Queen as she passed their bourids. But the Government, who had undertaken to defray all expenses of the funeral, curtly informed the civic authorities that the body would not be permitted to pass through London at all, out would be con veyed by the New Road to Romford, and from thence to Harwich. Lord Liverpool's reiterated declaration that all was done out of respect for the late Queen's wishes is in strong contrast to a passage in one of his letters Ao Lord Sidmouth, in which he observes that he would have despatched the body the whole way /by water if he had not been afraid of some disturbance at London Bridge ; and the public, who had ^returned to all their old attachment to Caroline/ now that she no longer needed their affection, were quick to perceive the insincerity ofthe noble Lord's assurances. There was much disgust, and a steady resolve that the late Queen should not be deprived of receiving the last honours it was in the power of the people to pay her. Even When one would have thought death had finally stilled ail agitation, the unhappy lady was not to be carried to her grave without tumult and excitement, and strongly opposing manifestations, c/f contemptuous hurry on the part of her husband's servants, of hearty attach ment on that of the English people. On the 14th of August the corpse, which had lain in state at Hammersmith, was removed by order of the Government. It was not without a solemn protest that Caroline's friends permitted this to be effected. As Bailey, the undertaker, entered the chamber of death, he was met by Dr. Lushington, who stood at the head of the little party of mourners. " I enter my solemn protest," 328 LIVES 1PF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. said the doctor, "in right of the legal power which is vested in me by her late Majesty, as ex ecutor. I command that the body be not re moved till the prangements suitable to the rank and dignity of jthe deceased are made." The undertaker declared he had authority to remove the corpse. " To\uch it not at your peril ! " cried the doctor. Bailey; asked if violence was intended, and Dr. LushingtorA answered that he neither re commended nor would assist in violence, whereon the former declared that he must perform the duty committed to him, and that he would take on himself all responsibility. Accordingly the Government instructions were carried out, though not without an emphatic remonstrance from Mr. Wilde, the other executon; the funeral cortege set out from Hammersmith between seven and eight in the morning. Early asut was, the people were already astir, and one anq. all were grimly deter mined that the " people's '¦ Queen " should pass once more through the heart of the City whither she had so often gone in life. \ The military escort decreed by the Government accompanied the coffin, and lender its protection the funeral train, which was joined, by Mr. Brougham and Sir Robert Wilson, passed on in decorous quiet till it reached Kensington Church. Here those who conducted it made an attempt to reach the Bayswater Road by Church Street, and thus entirely avoid the City. Fierce execrations rose from the watching multitude as this attempt was perceived, and in an incredibly^ short time the route selected by the Government authorities was so efficiently barricaded as to render a passage im possible. Sir Richard Baker, chief ^magistrate of Bow Street, and the Life Guards, appeared ; but findin g the way impassable, orders were given to pro- CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 329 ceed towards the City, a decision greeted by a shout of triumph by the mob. Sir Richard had come armed with fresh orders, that the coffin should be borne through the Kensington Gate of Hyde Park into the Edgeware Road ; but again the demeanour of the people, and the reiterated cries of " The City ! the City ! " were so menacing that once more the point was yielded ; and, acting according to his orders, Sir Richard strove to con duct the cortege into the Edgeware Road, either through Park Lane or by the east side of the Park; but at both points the multitude had already assembled, bent on opposition. " It was here," says Dr. Doran, " that the matter assumed a more serious aspect than it had yet worn. The soldiery began to grow chafed at an opposition which, in its turn, began to be emphasised by the employment of missiles. The attempt to pass up the Park was made in vain; that to force Park Lane was equally ineffectual. But while the struggle was raging at the latter point the line of procession was broken, and that part of it near the gate turned into the Park, carrying the hearse with it. The military at Park Lane turned back, followed the successful Mr. Bailey and his followers, and closing the gates upon the public, the body of the Queen was borne, at an unseemly pace, onwards to Cumberland Gate. But the in creasingly-excited people were light of foot, and when the head of the funeral line reached Cum berland Gate, with the intention to proceed, not down Oxford Street to the City, but up the Edge- ware Road, and, subsequently, the New Road, there was a compact mass resolved to give no passage, and determined to carry the royal corpse through the metropolis. It was here that Sir Robert Wilson endeavoured to mediate between 330 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. the multitude and the military. The commander- of the latter had no discretionary power, and could only obey his orders. His men, hitherto, had ex hibited great forbearance, but their patience was overcome when they found themselves fairly at tacked by the populace at this point. Neither mob nor soldiers were really culpable. The blame - rested entirely with the Ministry, whose folly and obstinacy had provoked the conflict, and made victims on both sides. The military (by which is to be understood the Life Guards, and not the ' Blues,' who formed part of the procession, and were quiescent throughout the day) at last fired a volley, by which several persons were severely injured, and two men, Francis and Honey, were slain. Not a few of the military were seriously wounded by the missiles flung at them in return,. but the hitherto victors were vanquished. They gave way, and across the blood that had been spilt, and among the wounded lying around, the people's Queen, as they called her, was once more carried on the way which the respectful feelings of the Ministry taught them it was best for her to go. The defeat and the victory seemed respectively ac cepted by the different parties. The individuals having the body in charge, and the escort, pushed hurriedly forwards with the hearse towards the New Road. But several of the mourners here left a procession to form part of which was attended with peril to life. The multitude looked moodily on; but suddenly, as if by common impulse, perhaps at the suggestion of some shout, they, too, rushed forward, determined to make one more at tempt at achieving a victory for themselves and the unconscious Queen. They who were con ducting the body along the New Road towards. Romford did not dream of further opposition, and. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 331 their astonishment was great when, on arriving at Tottenham Court Road, they found all progress, east or northward, completely obstructed, and no way open to them but southward, towards the City. In this direction they were compelled to turn, hailed by the popular exultation, and met with shouts of execration and menace, as they sought, but vainly, at each outlet down the east side of Tottenham Court Boad, to find a passage back into the suburban line. In the same way the procession was forced down Drury Lane, into the Strand. Sir Richard Baker did not yield to anything but compulsion, yet he lost his office, as Sir Robert Wilson did his commission, for endeavouring to do his duty under most trying and difficult circumstances. Once in the Strand, the people felt that their victory had been fairly and irrevocably achieved. When the royal body was carried under Temple Bar, its advent there was hailed with such a wild ' hurrah ' as had never met the ears of living sovereign. For seven hours that body had been dragged through wind, and rain, and mud — the King's will drawing it in .one direction, the people in another." According to their original intention, the civic authorities accompanied the funeral procession as far as Whitechapel, and paid her the last honours they could, in defiance of her consort's injunctions. .Bitterly mortified he was; and unmistakable ¦signs of his displeasure were quickly manifested towards the unlucky officials who had been unable to obey his behests. Finally leaving the City, the coffin was carried on its way as far as Romford. Here the mourners rested for the night, but the royal corpse was con veyed to Colchester, and placed in St. Peter's. Church. While it remained here the silver plate; 332 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. with the inscription directed by Caroline was affixed to the coffin lid. But the last wishes of the dead Queen, which, it was professed, were to be so scrupulously carried out, were disregarded and ignored to the end; and the plate was re moved within a very short time of its being fastened on, and replaced by one bearing the Queen's name and titles in ordinary form. The following day the procession arrived at Chelms ford, where the coffin was again placed in the Church for the night, though not without such scruple from the clergy as to call for the magis trates' intervention; and the next morning the journey was resumed at a rapid rate, "there being the strictest orders," says Brougham, " sent from Dublin* that the embarkation should be over before the arrival of the King, which was fixed for the next day." All along the route great crowds gathered, and manifest tokens of respect to the late Queen were displayed. At Harwich the Glasgow frigate, which was to convey the body to Cuxhaven, lay in waiting, together with the Pioneer schooner, two sloops of war, and three brigs. All was ready for embarkation when the funeral train arrived. " The scene," said Lord Brougham, " was such as I can never forget, or reflect upon without emotion. The multitudes assembled from all parts of the country were immense, and the pier crowded with them, as the sea was covered with boats of every size and kind, and the- colours of the vessels were half- mast high, as on days of mourning. The contrast of a bright sun with the gloom on every face was striking, and the guns firing at intervals made a .solemn impression. One of the sights, however, which most struck me, was a captain in the Royal * The King was then visiting Ireland. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 333 Navy, who sat on the pier, and could not be per suaded to leave it ; he was deeply affected, and wept exceedingly. Having been in her service, and employed then, and ever since, in dispensing her charities, he could not tear himself away ; but being refused his earnest request of accompanying her remains to Brunswick, he was resolved to witness the embarkation." The crimson coffin was lowered from the pier into a barge bearing the English flag, from which it was conveyed to the Pioneer, and from the latter vessel to the- Glasgow. The mourners — Lord and Lady Hood, Lady Anne Hamilton, Mr. Austin, Dr. and Mrs. Lushington, and Count Vasseli — followed;. and, under the charge of Captain Doyle, who, years ago, had assisted her as she entered the ship that brought her as a bride to England, the dead Queen quitted for ever a land that had been for her one long scene of injury and humiliation. At two in the noon of Sunday, August 19th, the little squadron anchored in Cuxhaven harbour. The body was conveyed by the Gannet sloop of war up the Elbe to the mouth of the Schwinde, from whence it was borne as far as Stade by a boat of the Wye sloop, accompanied by the mourners and a guard of marines. Four days more were occupied by the land journey, during which the coffin rested for a time on the tomb of Caroline's aunt, Caroline Matilda of England — one who was hardly less unhappy as Queen of Denmark than was her niece as Queen of Eng land. Everywhere people greeted the funeral train with sympathy and respect ; and when the cortege reached Brunswick, the body was removed from the hearse, and placed on a funeral car, which the Brunswickers themselves drew to the gates of the Cathedral of St. Blaize. The funeral 334 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. ceremony was performed at midnight, and was unmarked by any special state. The regency at Brunswick, during, the minority of the Duke, was in the hands of the King of England, and it was not to be expected that he would permit any ex traordinary demonstration. So, with but little of the pomp which usually attends royalty, the remains of the unhappy Queen were laid in the vault beneath the Cathedral, between the coffins of her father, who met his death at Jena, and her brother, who fell at the head of his Black Brunswickers at Quatre Bras. Over the coffin of the latter hung two small black flags, tributes from the maids and matrons of Brunswick, and the gorgeous trappings of death were almost hidden under the wreaths and garlands with which the love of the people had covered his resting-place. Thus, between the slain father and brother, the yet more hapless daughter and sister rests, in the old country of her youth, which she quitted in bridal pomp for a lot of such bitter and weary pain. The marks upon her coffin, where the plate bearing the inscription she had directed was originally placed, are still plainly visible, and have been often remarked by visitors to the vault. The only peculiar respect paid to her memory was an oration pronounced by an aged German pastor, Woolf, at the close of the funeral cere mony, in which he thanked God for giving her a merciful and benignant heart, and placing her where she was both able and willing to do much good. The following Sunday he preached a sermon in memory of her, which, though it con tains assertions that unprejudiced readers find hard to credit, was yet spoken in all sincerity. " Her quick understanding," he declared, " eagerly received every ray of divine truth, and her warm CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 335 heart and lively feelings were excited and elevated by piety. I knew her as an enlightened Christian, before she left the country of her birth. She first received from my hands with pious emotion, the Holy Supper of our Lord, and the solemnity of her manner was like her precious devotions, an unsuspected proof of her sincere faith and pious feeling. It is true," added the preacher, " that the sense of religion did not always preserve her from infirmities and 'errors; but where is the mortal, where has there been a saint, who has been always perfect ? And he who erred less may conscientiously ask himself whether he owes that to himself or to his more fortunate situation and the undeserved grace of God ? " It is a question that may well be considered by those, who, in far happier positions, and surrounded by the affection that was ever denied to her, are inclined to judge harshly of the wayward career of the unhappy Caroline of Brunswick. When she was laid to rest in Brunswick Cathedral, one would have thought that the sorrowful life drama was finally ended; but yet once more her name was to be brought before the public, and to form the subject of yet another calumny and another eloquent defence. Hitherto, assailed as she had been by audacious falsehoods, no action had been instituted against . her traducers. " She had," says Lord Brougham, " always been extremely averse to prosecution for libel, a subject which she had many occasions to -consider fully during the proceedings in 1806, the disputes in 1813 and 1814, and the later trial in the Lords, if trial it could be called, which out raged all justice both in form and substance. She was aware that nothing could be less satisfactory than our law as regards the offences of the press ; 336 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. she was satisfied that, according to the proceed ings in England in cases of libel, a person slandered, besides incurring much anxiety and vexation, inevitably gives, if he prosecutes, greater publicity and circulation to the slander, and enables the defence to add force to the calumnies. All this was likely in her case to gratify her enemies, and so prosecuting would be playing their game. When, therefore, we were discussing before her the question of prosecuting the per jured witnesses on the Bill, she could with difficulty be brought to consider the matter seriously, so strong was her opinion against such proceedings ; and she was well satisfied to find that technical difficulties made it hardly possible to proceed against them. There was one case, however, in which these difficulties did not exist, and it was on every account absolutely necessary to make the exception. A clergyman of the Established Church had preached a sermon of the greatest slander upon the Queen's going to St. Paul's to return thanks for her deliverance ; and I moved for, and obtained, as her Attorney- General, a rule for a criminal information. She was very anxious to make the affidavit to the falsehood of the charges usual in all such appli cations to the Court, but upon precedents being searched, it was found that a Queen Consort makes no such affidavit, but has the prerogative of moving by her Attorney-General, and no affidavit could be received. Her death happened before the trial, which took place at Lancaster, Mr. Justice Halroyd presiding, and I was of course the counsel for the prosecution." No better advocate could have been found for the royal lady ; and his speech, which took less than ten minutes to deliver,, was. admirable in its eloquent brevity. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 337 "May it please your Lordship, gentlemen of the jury. It is my painful duty to bring before you the particulars of this case ; it is yours to try it; and my part shall be performed in a very short time indeed ; for I have little, if anything, more to do than merely to read what I will not characterize by words of my own ; but I will leave to you, and I may leave to every man whose judgment is not perverted and whose heart is not corrupt, to affix the proper description to the writing, and his fitting character to the author. I will read to you what the defendant composed and printed ; and I need do no more. You have heard from my learned friend — and if you still have any doubt, it will soon be removed — to whom the following passage applies. Of the late Queen it is that the passage is written and published. It is in these words : — " ' The term ' cowardly,' which they have now laid to my charge, I think you will do me the justice to say, does not belong to me ; that feeling was never an inmate of my bosom ; neither when the Jacobins raged around us with all their fury, nor in the present days of Radical uproar and con fusion. The latter, indeed, it must be allowed, have one feature about them even more hideous and disgusting than the Jacobins themselves. They fell down and worshipped the Goddess of Reason, a most respectable and decent sort of being compared with that which the Radicals have set up as the idol of their worship. " ' They have elevated the Goddess of Lust on the pedestal of shame — an object of all others the most congenial to their taste, the most deserving of their homage, the most worthy of their admira tion. After exhibiting her claims to their favour in two distinct quarters of the globe ; after com- vol. in. z 338 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. passing sea and land with her guilty paramour, to gratify to the full her impure desires, and even polluting the Holy Sepulchre itself with her pre sence, to which she was carried in mock majesty astride upon an ass, she returned to this hallowed soil so hardened in sin, so bronzed with infamy, so callous to every feeling of decency or shame, as to go on Sunday last ' — here, gentlemen, the reverend preacher alluded, not to the public pro cession of St. Paul's, where her late Majesty re turned thanks for her delivery, or to other processions which might, partly at least, be con sidered as political, but to her humble, unaffected, pious devotions in the Church of Hammersmith — ' to go on Sunday last, clothed in the mantle of adultery, to kneel down at the altar of that God who is " of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," when she ought rather to have stood bare-footed in the aisle, covered with a shirt as white as "unsunned snow," doing penance for her sins. Till this had been done, I would never have defiled my hands by placing the sacred symbols in hers ; and this she would have been compelled to do in those good old days when Church discipline was in pristine vigour and activity.' "Gentlemen, the author of this scandalous, this infamous libel, is a minister of the gospel. The libel is a sermon — the act of publication was preaching it — the place was his Church — the day was the Sabbath — the audience was his flock. Far be it from me to treat lightly that office of which he wears the outward vestments, and which he by his conduct profanes. A pious, humble, in offensive, charitable minister of the gospel of peace is truly entitled to the tribute of affection and respect which is ever cheerfully bestowed. CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 339 But I know of no title to our love or our venera tion which is possessed by a meddling, intriguing, unquiet, turbulent priest, even when he chooses to separate his sacred office from his profane acts ; far less when he mixes up both together — when he refrains not from polluting the Sanctuary itself with calumny — when he not only invades the sacred circle of domestic life with the weapons of malicious scandal, but enters the hallowed thres hold of the temple with the torch of slander in his hand, and casts it flaming on the altar; poisons with rank calumnies the air which he especially is bound to preserve holy and pure — making the worship of God the means of injuring his neighbour, and defiling by his foul slanders the ears, and by his false doctrines perverting the minds, and by his wicked example tainting the lives, of the flock committed by Christ to his care ! " Of the defendant's motives I say nothing. I care not what they were, for innocent they could not be. I care not whether he was paying court to some patron, or looking up with a general aspect of sycophancy to the bounty of power, or whether it was mere mischief, and wickedness, or whether the outrage proceeds from sordid and malignant feelings combined, and was the base offspring of an union not unnatural, however illegitimate, between interest and spite. But be his motives of a darker or lighter shade, innocent they could not have been ; and unless the passage I have read proceeded from innocency, it would be a libel on you to doubt that you will find it a libel. " Of the illustrious and ill-fated individual who was the object of this unprovoked attack I forbear 340 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. to speak. She is now removed from such low strife, and there is an end, I cannot say of her checkered life, for her existence was one continued scene of suffering, of disquiet, of torment, from injustice, oppression, and animosity — by all who either held or looked up to emolument or aggran disement — all who either possessed or coveted them ; but the grave has closed over her unrelent ing persecutions. Unrelenting I may well call them, for they have not spared her ashes. The evil passions which beset her steps in life have not ceased to pursue her memory, with a resentment more relentless, more implacable, than death. But it is yours to vindicate the broken laws of your country. If your verdict shall have no effect on the defendant — if he still go on unrepentant and unabashed — it will at least teach others, or it will warn them and deter them from violating the decency of private life, betraying sacred public duties and insulting the majesty of the law." The defendant, Blacow, made a long rambling speech in his own defence, abusing everyone liberally, the Queen included ; but Mr. Brougham's eloquence had won his cause, and the jury found the reverend libellor guilty without hesitation. That trial was the last echo of the ill-starred life just ended. Henceforward, all were glad to keep silence concerning so painful a subject ; and the luckless Princess, whose name had been so often and so loudly on the public tongue, was allowed to rest in peace, far away from the Court and country wherein she had. produced so much agitation, and had been so supremely miserable. " Lord Liverpool," says Mr. Fitzgerald, " wrote CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 341 eagerly to Dublin to propose a general mourning, which he said would gracefully wind up the un happy business. But the King would not agree to this. He was displeased, too, at the body not being embarked in the river, but the Admiralty had objected. Lord Liverpool again pressed that the mourning should be general, and pronounced three weeks too short ; but the King declined to alter his resolution." Of Caroline's character it is difficult, even after this long space of time, to judge. So much that was diametrically opposed was asserted of and for her by friends and enemies, that it is no easy matter to sift the false from the true. Even those who, during her trial, were among her most en thusiastic champions, spoke disparagingly of her when the political advisability of such partizan- ship was over. " She was at best," writes Lord Holland, who had been one of the most zealous of her upholders, " a strange woman, and a very sorry and uninteresting heroine. She had, they say, some talent, some pleasantry, some good humour, and great spirit and courage. But she was utterly destitute of all female delicacy, and exhibited, in the whole course of the transactions relating to herself, very little feeling for anybody, and very little regard for honour and truth, or even for the interests of those who were devoted to her, whether the people in the aggregate, or the individuals who enthusiastically espoused her cause. She avowed her dislike for many, scarcely concealed her contempt for all ; in short, to speak plainly, if not mad, she was a very worthless woman." Such a verdict may be safely taken as exaggerated, uncharitable, and unfair; but the doubt expressed of her sanity is curiously coin- 342 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. cident with the apology once made for her by her mother, the Duchess of Brunswick, during her exile in England, when Caroline had been indulg ing in some foolish freak. " But her excuse is, poor thing, that she is not right here," touching her forehead. It is indeed by no means unlikely, that, excitable and impetuous as she was by nature, and harassed by never ceasing worry and vexation, the mind of the unhappy Princess of Wales may, in a slight degree, have become affected. Her purposeless and senseless eccentri cities, her wildness and excitement of behaviour, and her uncontrollable fondness for children, seem to point clearly to such a conclusion ; and looked at in this light, the life which was so startling an enigma to her contemporaries has a probable and easy interpretation. At all events, it is impossible to deny that the unfortunate lady suffered un justifiable harshness, neglect, and unkindness enough to explain any wavering of mental equili brium. Naturally gifted with many good qualities, which, under the fostering influence of a husband who had possessed the smallest modicum of affec tion and good principle, would have been en couraged and developed, and would have overcome the recklessness and wilfulness of her character, she passed into the power of a consort who abhorred and insulted her — caused her to associate with shameless women whose one object was to traduce and disgrace her — and whose hatred, un mixed with pity or remorse, led him, as Dr. Doran justly remarks, to outrage all sense of justice, when, " steeped to the very lips in uncleanness, he demanded that his consort should be rendered for ever infamous, for the alleged commission of acts for which he claimed impunity on his own CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 343 account." "My mother was bad," said the Princess Charlotte sadly, " but she would not have become as bad as she did if my father had not been infinitely worse." That she was guilty of the crimes laid to her charge by her husband's creatures we may hope and believe to be untrue. To assert so positively is more than any biographer, having in view the conflicting evidence on record, would dare to do ; but, bearing in mind the proved fact that many of the witnesses against her were paid by the English Government for their testimony — that, with hardly an exception, they were Italians of the lowest class, to whom lying came more naturally than truth — that the spies ofthe English King were ever on the watch to report every instance of her indiscretion — that the hatred of her consort gladly magnified the least impru dence into a heinous crime — that in her almost insane love of defying his espionage, she invariably behaved before his spies with thrice her natural recklessness — that she never flinched from the minute inquiry made into her manners and habits — that English ' ladies, who had known her inti mately, and before whom she had taken no pains to assume an artificial propriety, "laughed to scorn," as Brougham says, the most serious allegations against her — and that she again and again protested her innocence with all solemnity and earnestness — we may hold that there is at least a strong presumption in favour of her guiltlessness. That she often , erred — that she was wanting in refinement and womanly dignity — that she was faulty, reckless, foolishly, almost wickedly, imprudent ^nd defiant, and that her wandering life compromised her reputation, and was unworthy of her alike as Princess and 344 LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF WALES. woman — must be granted; but for the rest, it may be hoped that her character did not bear the deep shades her enemies assigned to it ; and, remembering what her husband was and did, even were all true that was spoken against her, we may most emphatically pronounce her more sinned against than sinning. THE END. Printed by Remington & Co., 134, New Bond Street, W. 3 9002