Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda, Vol. I (of III)

DEATH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES-HIS CHARACTER-HIS EPITAPH-THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY-BIRTH OF CAROLINE MATILDA-LORD BUTE-MELCOMBE'S DIARY-THE GREAT NO-POPERY CRY-CHARACTER OF GEORGE III.-MAJORITY OF THE PRINCE OF WALES-COURT CABALS-MISS CHUDLEIGH-HORACE, PRINCE OF SCANDALIA.

On a March evening, in 1751, the beau monde of London was gently agitated by the news that Frederick, Prince of Wales, had just expired, at his house in Leicester Fields. He died somewhat suddenly, and in the arms of one Desnoyers, a French dancing master, who, having been called in to soothe the prince's mind by playing the fiddle at his bedside, had the honour of holding him in his arms during the final struggle. Orpheus, we read, could charm savage beasts by the sound of his lyre; but the violin, however eloquently played, had no authority over tyrant Death. The prince had received a blow in the side from a cricket-ball some months previously, while playing at that game on the lawn of Cliefden House. This had formed an internal abscess, which eventually burst, and the discharge suffocated him.[1]

The prince's death created no great sensation. It is notorious that he had long been on bad terms with his royal father; but that is too common a thing in German regnant houses to deserve comment: in such, the rule divide et impera is carried out logically; that is to say, the father tyrannises, and commands his son to join the Opposition, in order, in any event, to keep the power in the family, should the over-taut bow-string snap.

Frederick, Prince of Wales, at an early age was instructed in the noble art of hunting with the dogs and howling with the wolves; and the historical searcher comes across amusing instances of his pseudo liberalism. One of the most remarkable, was his reply to the City addresses on the birth of his eldest son, when he had the audacity to say-doubtless, with his tongue in his cheek-"My son, I hope, may come in time to deserve the gratitude of a free people; and it shall be my constant care to instruct him that true loyalty can only be the result of liberty." I really cannot feel surprised at his father detesting the hypocrite so thoroughly.

The fulness of pride which made George III. declare, in his first speech after ascending the throne, that, "born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton,"[2] had been fostered by his father from a very early age. A curious instance of this will be found in the following extract from a prologue to Cato, which was put in the lad's mouth on January 4, 1749, in a representation of that play by the royal family at Leicester House. After making a tremendous panegyric on liberty, the boy goes on to say-

"Should this superior to my years be thought,

Know-'tis the first great lesson I was taught.

What! tho' a boy! it may with pride be said:

A boy,-in England born,-in England bred;

Where freedom well becomes the earliest state;

For there the laws of liberty innate," &c. &c.

It may fairly be assumed that this boast was produced with such reiteration less through a feeling of sincerity than a desire of instituting odorous comparisons with the lad's grandpapa, who did not enjoy the honour of being born a Briton. George II., who with all his faults was no hypocrite, saw through this amiable purpose, and detested his son the more.

Besides, George II., though a worthy little man in some respects, was not remarkable for amiability of temper; and though he professed to be devotedly attached to his wife-after her death-his affection during her life was considerably suggested by that unconscious dread which a stupid husband has of a wife who is not only clever herself, but competent to gauge her husband's stupidity.[3] Still, with all his grievances against his son-and they were, doubtless, many-he ought to have studied proprieties a little more, when he heard of Prince Frederick's death; and that horrid "Fritz ist todt," whispered in the ear of the Countess of Yarmouth, displays an unforgiving spirit, hardly to be reconciled with the generally generous temper of George II.; for, like most peppery men, he was good natured.[4]

I have waded through all the authorities who have left us any account of the prince, and the conclusion arrived at is only a negative one. Lord Melcombe may be put out of court at once, for he evidently wrote under the influence of that feeling of gratitude which has been defined as a lively sense of favours to come. Having been bubbled by the father, he did not intend to spoil his game with the son,-especially as that son was the future fountain of all honours. But Frederick owed a great many of his bad qualities to this Bubb Dodington, who in more than one respect resembled the sillabub to which my Lord Chesterfield compared him; for he was sweet, cloying, and left a very unpleasant taste in the mouth. Surrounded by flatterers and sycophants, Frederick had just sufficient sense to see that he was being made a tool of; and he learned the art himself to perfection. It has been urged in his favour, that he patronised literature and art; but if he obtained any credit on that account, it was on the same principle as makes a one-eyed man a king among the blind. He condescended to visit Pope at Twickenham; and, in return, the poet immortalised him, by the delicate allusion conveyed in the two lines-

"And if yet higher the proud list should end,

Still, let me add, no follower but a friend."

But, granted this merit, the remaining qualities that make up the character of Frederick are of the most negative type. He was a spendthrift: he borrowed money unblushingly, careless as to where he obtained it, and with the very faintest expectation of repaying it. Though a father of seven children, he lived in open adultery with a lady, whose house in Pall Mall had a secret communication with Carlton House. He was pretty frequently in the habit of paying visits to fortune-tellers; and would go in disguise to see the bull-baiting at Hockley-in-the-Hole. Such is the residuum, when we take away the prestige of princely birth. Nor, had Frederick the good fortune to excite a hearty detestation, except in the case of his father: the people, generally, treated his death with the most profound contempt. Two men were heard talking of his decease in Leicester Fields:-"He has left a great many small children." "Ay," replied the other; "and, what is worse, they belong to our parish."[5] We may safely say of him, in the courtly language of Sir W. Wraxall: "As far as we are authorised, from these premisses, to form a conclusion, his premature death before he ascended the throne ought not to excite any great national regret." But his memory will live forever, in connection with the stinging epigram, in which the Tory feeling toward the Hanoverian race is so wonderfully depicted:-

"Here lies Fred,

Who was alive, and is dead.

Had it been his father,

I had much rather.

Had it been his brother,

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's no more to be said."

And yet, bad though Frederick indubitably was, and deficient in almost every quality that constitutes the gentleman, we must not be too hard on him. The manners of the age made him what he was; and he would have been a wonderfully strong-minded man had he resisted their influence. It may be a trite remark, but I fancy that nothing strikes the historical student more than the change of manners that has taken place in so short a period. When I was a boy, I remember being told by an old female relative that she could perfectly well remember the coronation of George III. In her presence, the reigns of George II. and William IV. seemed to shake hands, and yet what a chasm existed between them. The greater portion of the eighteenth century was a Tophet; we need only read Casanova's Memoirs to see what it was on the Continent; but in England it strikes us even more offensively, because here vice stalked forth with its brazen brow uncovered. In France, on the other hand, there was something Watteau-esque about it, and a slightly redeeming grace. It is true that England had the great blessing of an industrious middle class, among which moral views and the honest customs of Puritanism were maintained; but the aristocratic classes were utterly corrupt. The Hanoverian dynasty introduced, among other blessings, the sauer-kraut tone of German pauper nobility; and its coarseness easily found access among a people in whom every feeling of decency had been destroyed by the fabulously shameless comedians of the Restoration. The family life of the two first Georges was one long offence against propriety. Between the first George and his son the feeling of hatred was so extreme, that, after the death of the former, a document was found in his cabinet containing the proposition and plan to seize the Prince of Wales and ship him off to the colonies, where he could be easily got rid of. When we remember, too, the mistresses whom George I. brought in his train from Hanover-the "Elephant," that enormous lump of flesh, Sophie Freifrau von Kielmansegge, and the "Maypole," her tall, thin rival, the Gr?fin Melusine von Eberstein-we can easily understand the coarseness which appears deep-rooted in English society far into the eighteenth century. One thing we may say in favour of this society, that no hypocrisy was displayed. When Lady Dorchester, ex-mistress of James II., once met in her old days, in George I.'s ante-chamber, the Duchess of Portsmouth, ex-mistress of Charles II., and Lady Orkney, ex-mistress of William III., she exclaimed, loudly enough to be heard by all persons, "Good God! who ever could have supposed that we three (well, suppose I say Traviati, as better suited to the age than the plump word employed by her ladyship) should meet at this place?" George II.'s sensible and virtuous wife strove in vain to introduce a more decent tone into polite society; and vice was still rampant far into the reign of her well-meaning grandson.

Early in the eighteenth century, polite society added to its other accomplishments that of the wildest gambling, to which the South-Sea Bubble gave the impulse. At White's, young gentlemen frequently lost in one evening from ￡5 to ￡20,000; and at the Cocoa Tree, one night, there was a single stake of ￡180,000. The unbounded betting mania among the bucks was often displayed in the quaintest forms. Thus, for instance, in 1756, Lords Rockingham and Oxford got up a race between four geese and four turkeys from Norwich to London. English "eccentricity," as the French would call it, had the fullest scope at that time. Take, for instance, Lord Baltimore, whom we find travelling on the Continent, in 1769, with a harem of eight women, on whom he tried all sorts of dietetic experiments. I need only hint at the orgies held in Medmenham Abbey, and the blasphemous travesties of the Hell-fire Club, to which fifteen ladies of the highest rank considered it an honour to belong.

At that time, the governing classes and the governed had scarce anything in common but the air they breathed, or an occasional street row. Fashionable vice affected a publicity which imparts historic value to the satirical descriptions which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has left us. She tells us, inter alia, how, at Sir R. Walpole's seat, a bill was discussed, for the purpose of omitting the "not" from the Ten Commandments. Further on, we find a remark that both sexes have so thoroughly recognised the inconveniences of matrimony that even girls ridiculed it; and the title of "rake" graces women no less than men. Or again, we read that, now-a-days, it is not considered at all improper to say publicly that the Maid of Honour, Mrs. So-and-So, had got over her confinement, but that Miss Whatshername has never thoroughly recovered from her accouchement. With such a tone prevailing in society, we can understand how Lord Chesterfield could reply to the notorious Miss Chudleigh, when she complained of having been falsely accused of giving birth to twins, "For my part, I never believe more than half of what people say."

Under the government of George III. matters became no better. On the contrary, the fashionable world seemed to take a pride in resenting by their conduct the stupid domesticity of "Farmer George." We come across lady topers, who could send the most practised wine-bibbers under the table. Luxury, which was enormously augmented by the return of the Nabobs, who had shaken the pagoda-tree to some effect, was displayed in the realisation of the most wonderful caprices. Family and wedded honour was trampled under foot, and the shamelessness of the women attained incredible proportions. When one of the most notorious demireps, Lady Worseley, ran away with an officer, and the insulted husband sued for a divorce, the lady, in the hope of saving her paramour's purse, summoned as witnesses thirty-two young noblemen and gentlemen, who had all been her lovers with her husband's knowledge. Seven-and-twenty really appeared in court, and one of them added, that Sir Richard once took him up to the roof of the house to show him his wife in her bath-a Venus Anadyomene. On the day of this remarkable trial there was an important motion in the House, and Lord North was very anxious to secure the votes of his whole party. Hence, when he did not see Sir Richard in his place, and the reason for his absence was stated, he exclaimed, "Oh! if all my cuckolds leave me in the lurch, I shall surely be in a minority." An illustration of this remark is afforded in the fact, that the Bishop of Llandaff, when bringing in a bill to regulate the Divorce Court, in 1777, stated, that since George III.'s ascent of the throne, or during only sixteen years, there had been more divorces than during the whole previous history of England. The wives, of course, merely followed the example of their husbands in immorality, as is usually the case. How, indeed, could any check be possible, when a British minister, the Duke of Grafton, could dare to drive out with his mistress, Nancy Parsons, one of the most notorious Anonymas of the day, in the presence of the Court?

When fashionable vice was so openly and unblushingly displayed, it could not fail but that the populace of the capital should now and then break out into excesses of unbridled savagedom, as was more especially the case in the notorious No-Popery riots of 1780. Crimes increased to an extraordinary extent, not only in number, but in brutality. Horrible murders were every-day events, as a glance at the "Annual Register" will afford sickening proof. Members of the aristocracy committed the most aggravated murders. As an instance, an Irish gentleman, after waylaying a rival favoured by his mistress, offered him the choice between death and awful mutilation, and, when the latter was chosen, carried it out in such a way that the mutilated man died. The boldness of the robbers and highwaymen was unbounded. The Lord Chancellor was robbed of the great seal of England, the great Pitt of his plate, the Archbishop of Canterbury's house was broken into, and the French mail stopped and plundered in one of the busiest streets of the metropolis. In vain did a justice, which rivalled crime in barbarity, pass whole batches of death-sentences. In one year (1766), two hundred and twenty-three persons were cast for death at the Assizes, and duly hanged. In 1786, one hundred and thirty-three were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey alone. Very significant signs of the age are the repeated instances of idiotcy, insanity, and suicide. It was not at all uncommon for a noble rake-hell,[6] who had drunk the cup of licentiousness to the dregs, to collect a number of prostitutes for a final orgie, and blow out his brains, either during or immediately after the Bacchanalian revel.[7]

Such was the state of society at the time when Augusta of Saxe-Coburg, Princess of Wales, was left with seven young children, and another shortly expected.[8] She was a young widow, only two-and-thirty years of age, and had not a friend to depend on in the world. The king, her papa-in-law, cordially hated her, and she had not even the consolation of regretting her husband, for, though born a princess, she was a woman after all, and had bitterly felt her late husband's open profligacy with Lady Archibald Hamilton. Prince George alone expressed any regret at his father's death, and that was in a modified form. When he was told of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, sir, you are not well;" and the prince replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew."[9]

Sturdy little King George very soon recovered from the shock of his son's death, even if he felt it; for we find that, on March 31, there was a great court at St. James's, where the king appeared for the first time in public since the death of the prince. On this occasion Prince George, with his brothers, waited on his Majesty, who, in the evening, paid a visit of condolence to his daughter-in-law at Leicester House, which he followed up by another visit on April 4, paying great attention to her comforts, and ordering the first quarterly payment of her income in advance.[10] This income was by marriage settlement ￡100,000 a year; but the princess had formed a resolution to pay her husband's private debts, and kept her word. Shortly after receiving this scrap of comfort, the widow's family was enlarged; on the evening of June 13 the princess walked in Carlton Gardens, supped, and went to bed very well; she was taken ill about six o'clock on the following morning, and at about eight was delivered of a princess-the unfortunate Caroline Matilda. "Both well," Melcombe adds. Could he but have read the future, he might have cried, "Better had she ne'er been born!"

The next few years passed over very tranquilly, to all appearance; the princess devoted herself to the education of her children, and listening to the advice of the only man she thoroughly trusted-Lord Bute. This nobleman, a poor Scotchman, had made the acquaintance of Frederick several years before, and by a diligent course of McSycophantism, had rendered himself essential. Although he was the father of a large family, his connection with the princess had the worst possible interpretation put on it: and his unfortunate propensity for playing the part of Lothario in private theatricals, gave an awful handle to Wilkes, Churchill, and the other miscreants, who made up for the bluntness of the weapon they handled by the ferocity of the blows they dealt. Even the elegant Horry put an extra squeeze of gall into his standish when describing the amours of the princess.

From Melcombe and Walpole we obtain a few glances at the domestic life of the princess, which are worthy of attention, as showing the sphere and the society in which Caroline Matilda was educated. The mother, it is quite certain, dearly loved her children, but had a most disagreeable way of showing her love. She kept a terribly tight rein over them, and imbued them with her own prejudices and hatreds. Prince George's uncle, "butcher George" of Cumberland, taking up a sabre once and drawing it to amuse the child, the boy started and turned pale. The prince felt a generous shock: "What must they have told him about me?" he asked. Very touching, too, is the story of the little Duke of Gloucester (who in after years distinguished himself with Lady Grosvenor). Seeing him silent and unhappy, the princess sharply asked the cause of his silence: "I am thinking," said the poor child. "Thinking, sir-of what?" "I am thinking, if ever I have a son, I will not make him so unhappy as you make me."

And yet this woman, with her cold repellent way, adored her children, and would have readily laid down her life for any one of them; but she forced back her affection, lest the display of it might weaken her authority over them. The examples of this maternal affection are so frequent in Melcombe, that I may be pardoned for putting together a few extracts which will throw a little pleasing light on a most calumniated woman:-

"Oct. 9, 1752.-I received a letter from Mr. Cresset that her royal highness would see me this morning. I got to Kew at half-past eleven. I saw H.R.H. very soon; she, the Ladies Augusta, Elizabeth, and I, went out and we walked without sitting down for more than three hours. We had much talk upon all manner of private subjects, serious and ludicrous. Her behaviour was open, friendly and unaffected. She commanded me to dine and pass the evening with her. When we came in we met Lady Middlesex, who had sent me word she was to be there. We walked in the afternoon till dark. As we came in, she said she had a petition from the prince (of Wales) that we would play at comet, of which he was very fond. The party was the prince's-the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward; the Ladies Augusta and Elizabeth, Lady Middlesex and Charlotte Edwin, and myself."

"Oct. 15, 1752.-The princess having sent to desire me to pass the day with her, I waited accordingly on her between eleven and twelve. I saw her immediately; H.R.H., the children, and Lady Charlotte Edwin went walking till two, and then returned to prayers, and from thence to dinner. As soon as dinner was over, she sent for me, and we sat down to comet. We rose from play about nine; the royal children retired, and the princess called me to the farther end of the room. She began by saying that she liked the prince should, now and then, amuse himself at small play, but that princes should never play deep, both for the example, and because it did not become them to win great sums."

I omit a long conversation in which the princess and Melcombe discussed the ministry, and the king's conduct towards her; after which the courtly scribe continues: "I then took the liberty to ask her what she thought the real disposition of the prince to be? She said that I knew him almost as well as she did; that he was very honest, but she wished that he was a little more forward, and less childish at his age; that she hoped his preceptors would improve him. I begged to know what methods they took, what they read to him or made him read, and whether he showed a particular inclination to any of the people about him. She said she did not well know what they taught him, but, to speak freely, she was afraid not much; that they were in the country and followed their diversion, and not much else. She said, Stone told her that when he talked to the prince upon those subjects (the government and constitution, the general course and manner of business), he seemed to give a proper attention, and made pertinent remarks. She repeated, he was a very honest boy, that his chief passion seemed for his brother Edward.... She said the prince seemed to have a very tender regard for the memory of his father, and that she encouraged it as much as she could; that when they behaved wrongly, or idly (as children will do), to any that belonged to the late prince, and who are now about her, she always asked them how they thought their father would have liked to see them behave so to anybody that belonged to him, and whom they valued; and that they ought to have the more kindness for them, because they had lost their friend and protector, who was theirs also; and she said she found that it made a proper impression upon them."

"Dec. 5, 1752.-Lord Harcourt resigned being governor to the prince. He offered to do so, unless Mr. Stone (placed as sub-governor by the ministers), Mr. Scott, tutor in the late prince's time (but recommended by Lord Bolingbroke), and Mr. Cresset, made treasurer by the princess's recommendation, were removed. The king desired him to consider of it; but Lord Harcourt continuing in the same resolution, the archbishop and lord chancellor were sent to him to know the particulars of his complaints against those gentlemen. He replied that the particulars were fit only to be communicated to the king; and, accordingly, he waited on his Majesty, which ended in his resignation. The Bishop of Norwich sent in his resignation by the same prelate and lord."

Sagacious Horace Walpole, who compressed so much wit into a sheet of ordinary post, had entertained his doubts about Lord Harcourt two years before: writing to Sir H. Mann, on June 8, 1751, he says in his dry way, "They have hooked in, too, poor Lord Harcourt, and call him Harcourt the wise: (how Horace must have grinned as he italicised the last word;) his wisdom has already disgusted the young prince: 'Sir, pray hold up your head,' 'Sir, for God's sake, turn out your toes!' Such are Mentor's precepts."

The storm in a puddle about Stone created an enormous sensation, and the old cry of "wooden shoes and popery" rang through the land just as-well, just as it does now-a-days, on any favourable occasion. The story is a curious one, as told by Walpole, although Adolphus pooh-poohs it in a very lordly way in his history of George III.

The young Prince of Wales, on the death of his father, was placed by the king under the care of the Earl of Harcourt as governor; of Dr. Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, as preceptor; and of Mr. Stone and Mr. Scott as sub-governor and sub-preceptor. The two former were favourites of Lord Lincoln, the ministerial nephew: Stone was the bosom-confidant of the Duke of Newcastle: Scott, as well as the solicitor-general, Murray, and Cresset, the favourite of the princess, were disciples of Lord Bolingbroke, and his bequest to the late prince. Stone, in general a cold, mysterious man, of little plausibility, had always confined his arts, his application, and probably his views, to one or two great objects. The princess could answer to all these lights; with her he soon ingratiated himself deeply. Lord Harcourt was minute and strict in trifles; and thinking that he discharged his trust conscientiously, if on no account he neglected to make the prince turn out his toes, he gave himself little trouble to respect the princess, or to condescend to the sub-governor. The bishop, thinking himself already minister to the future king, expected dependence from, and never once thought of depending upon, the inferior governors. In the education of the two princes he was sincerely honest and zealous, and soon grew to thwart the princess whenever, as an indulgent, or perhaps a little as an ambitious mother, (and this happened but too frequently,) she was willing to relax the application of her sons. These jars appeared soon after the king's going to Hanover; and by the season of his return they were ripe for his interposition.

With these disappointments, the king returned to England, and arrived at St. James's, November 18th. The princess appeared again in public, and the king gave her the same honours and place as the queen used to have. He was not in the same gracious mood with others of the court. The calamity of Lord Holderness, the secretary of state, was singular; he was for some days in disgrace, for having played at blindman's-buff in the summer at Tunbridge. To Lord Harcourt the king said not a word. In the beginning of December the chancellor and the archbishop sent to Lord Harcourt that they would wait on him by the king's command. He prevented them, and went to the chancellor, who told him that they had orders to hear his complaints. He replied, "They were not proper to be told but to the king himself," which did not make it a little suspicious, that even the princess was included in his disgusts. The first incident that had directly amounted to a quarrel was the Bishop of Norwich finding the Prince of Wales reading Père d'Orleans's "Révolutions d'Angleterre," a book professedly written by the direction, and even by the communication, of James II., to justify his measures. Stone at first peremptorily denied having seen that book in thirty years, and offered to rest his whole justification upon the truth or falsehood of that accusation. At last it was confessed that the prince had the book, but it was qualified with Prince Edward's borrowing it of his sister Augusta. Stone acted mildness, and professed being willing to continue to act with Lord Harcourt and the bishop; but the sore had penetrated too deep, and they who had given the wounds had aggravated them with harsh provocations. The bishop was accused of having turned Scott one day out of the prince's chamber by an imposition of hands that had at least as much of the flesh as the spirit in the force of the action. Cresset, the link of the connection, had dealt out very ungracious epithets both on the governor and preceptor; and Murray, by an officious strain of strange impudence, had early in the quarrel waited on the bishop, and informed him that Mr. Stone ought to have more consideration in the prince's family; and repeating the visit and opinion, the bishop said, "He believed that Mr. Stone found all proper regard, but that Lord Harcourt, the chief of the trust, was generally present." Murray interrupted him, and cried, "Lord Harcourt! pho! he is a cypher, and must be a cypher, and was put in to be a cypher." A notification, however understood before by the world, that could not be very agreeable to the person destined to a situation so insignificant! Accordingly, December 6th, Lord Harcourt had a private audience in the king's closet, and resigned. The archbishop waited on his Majesty, desiring to know if he would see the Bishop of Norwich, or accept his resignation from his (the archbishop's) hands. The king chose the latter.[11]

The poor princess was sadly perplexed by all this pother, and told Melcombe that she knew nothing of it, and could not conceive what they meant: but she added, after profound reflection, "indeed, the bishop was teaching them logic, which, as she was told, was a very odd study for children of their age, not to say of their condition." Perhaps, if Prince George had paid more attention to the study, he would not have behaved so illogically during the American war. However, it all blew over again, ere long, and we find Lord Melcombe able to record:

"1753, February 8.-I waited on the princess. She began at once by saying she had good news to tell me; that they were very happy in their family; that the new bishop gave great satisfaction; that he seemed to take great care and in a proper manner; and that the children took to him and seemed mightily pleased.

"I stick (the princess is speaking) to the learning as the chief point; you know how backward they were when we were together, and I am sure you don't think them much improved since. It may be that it is not too late to acquire a competence, and that is what I am most solicitous about; and if this man, by his manner, should hit upon the means of giving them that, I shall be mightily pleased. The Bishop of Norwich was so confused, that one could never tell what he meant, and the children were not at all pleased with him. The stories about the history of the Père d'Orleans were false; the only little dispute between the bishop and Prince Edward, was about le Père Péréfixe's history of Henry IV."

One more extract, and we return Lord Melcombe to the limbo whence we drew him.

"1753, November 17.-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 music, 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 undress, and took their stools and sat round the fire with us. We continued talking of familiar occurrences till between seven and eleven, with the ease and unreservedness and unconstraint, 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 knowledge of the world."

Bubb's closing remark may be truly endorsed. Though Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Peterboro', the new preceptor to the Prince of Wales, was a very excellent man, and gave great satisfaction to the princess, from the extraordinary care and proper manner manifested in his conduct, and though the royal children loved him, and were much pleased with his instruction,-for all that I do not think him the right man in the right place. Granted that the course of education became of the most beneficial kind, and that the public were fully satisfied that the prince, instead of being separated from his remaining parent, should be especially under her care, whilst he received his elementary initiation into literature and politics, still, the result was a faulty one, as a competent writer on the subject allows.[12]

In the plan, however, of keeping the prince exempt from the vices of the age, there was, perhaps, too much and unnecessary strictness; as it went so far as even to restrain him, with a few exceptions, from all intercourse with the young nobility, confining his knowledge of the world to books and the social circle at Leicester House, which, though select and cheerful as well as unrestrained, was not adapted to give that manliness of character necessary for a monarch, and might have been productive of much evil, had not the prince's own natural resolution, since denominated obstinacy, preserved him from acquiring that milkiness of character which might have been expected.

Little did people think at the time how bitterly a fair-haired cherub, then playing about the gardens of Carlton House, would suffer from the want of knowledge of the world in which her brother was being brought up.

In this rambling chapter, the slightest allusion to the family of Caroline Matilda must be forgiven, and the following passage is solely inserted to prove the thoughtfulness of the Princess of Wales for the poor, and as a fair ground for assuming that qualis mater, talis filia.

"Another instance of the attention paid by the Princess Dowager to the encouragement of native industry, and to the finding employment for females, was manifested on the Princess Augusta's birthday, when she herself, with all the princesses, appeared in curious hats of fine thread needlework on book muslin, in hopes of bringing them into fashion, as it would employ a great number of poor girls, making useful subjects of those who would otherwise be burdensome to the public, or exposed to all the horrors of vice and penury."[13]

I hesitated for a long time ere I made up my mind to quote Walpole's account of the Prince of Wales attaining his majority, for it contains many scandalous insinuations against his mother, for which there is not a particle of evidence. I have, however, decided on giving it room, not only because it throws some light on family affairs, but also because I have such faith in the character of the princess that I believe it can defy even worse attacks. Having a special object in view in giving these details, which will not be visible for some time hence, I throw down the glove to the goddess of scandal and her arch-priest, Horace Walpole, and let them say their worst.

"The Prince of Wales attained the age prescribed for his majority on June 4, by which the Regency Bill remains only a dangerous precedent of power to posterity-no longer so to us, for whose subjection it was artfully, though, by the grace of God, vainly calculated. This epoch, however, brought to light the secrets of a court, where, hitherto, everything had been transacted with mysterious decency. The princess had conducted herself with great respect to the king, with appearance of impartiality to ministers and factions. If she was not cordial to the duke (of Cumberland), or was averse to his friends, it had been imputed less to any hatred adopted from her husband's prejudices, than to jealousy of the government of her son; if the world should choose to ascribe her attention for him to maternal affection, they were at liberty; she courted and watched him neither more nor less for their conjectures. It now at last appeared that maternal tenderness or ambition were not the sole passions that engrossed her thoughts. It had already been whispered that the assiduity of Lord Bute at Leicester House, and his still more frequent attendance in the gardens at Kew and Carlton House, were less addressed to the Prince of Wales than to his mother. The eagerness of the pages of the back-stairs to let her know whenever Lord Bute arrived [and some other symptoms] contributed to dispel the ideas that had been conceived of the rigour of her widowhood. On the other hand, the favoured personage, naturally ostentatious of his person, and of haughty carriage, seemed by no means desirous of concealing his conquest. His bows grew more theatric, his graces contracted some meaning, and the beauty of his leg was constantly displayed in the eyes of the poor captivated princess. Indeed, the nice observers of the court-thermometer, who often foresee a change of weather before it actually happens, had long thought that her royal highness was likely to choose younger ministers than that formal piece of empty mystery, Cresset, or the matron-like decorum of Sir George Lee.... Her simple husband, when he took up the character of the regent's gallantry, had forced an air of intrigue even upon his wife. When he affected to retire into gloomy allées with Lady Middlesex, he used to bid the princess walk with Lord Bute. As soon as the prince was dead, they walked more and more, in honour of his memory.[14]

"The favour of Lord Bute was scarce sooner known than the connections of Pitt and Legge with him. The mystery of Pitt's breach with Fox was at once unravelled-and a court secret of that nature was not likely long to escape the penetration of Legge, who wormed himself into every intrigue where his industry and subservience could recommend him-yet Legge had not more application to power than Newcastle jealousy of it. Such an entrenchment round the successor alarmed him. It was determined in his little council that the moment the Prince of Wales should be of age, he should be taken from his mother; but the secret evaporating, intimations by various channels were conveyed to the Duke of Newcastle and to the chancellor, how much the prince would resent any such advice being given to the king, and that it would not be easy to carry it into execution. The prince lived shut up with his mother and Lord Bute, and must have thrown them under some difficulties; their connection was not easily reconcilable to the devotion which they had infused into the prince; the princess could not wish him always present, and yet dreaded his being out of her sight. His brother Edward, who received a thousand mortifications, was seldom suffered to be with him; and Lady Augusta, now a woman, was, to facilitate some privacy for the princess, dismissed from supping with her mother, and sent back to cheese-cakes, with her little sister Elizabeth, on pretence that meat at night would fatten her too much.

"The ministers, too apt to yield when in the right, were now obstinate in the wrong place, and without knowing how to draw the king out of the difficulty into which they were pushing him, advised this extraordinary step. On May 31st, Lord Waldegrave, as the last act of his office of governor, was sent with letters of the same tenor to the prince and to his mother, to acquaint them that the prince being now of age, the king, who had ever shown the greatest kindness and affection for him, had determined to give him ￡40,000 a-year, would settle an establishment for him, of the particulars of which he should be informed, and that his Majesty had ordered the apartments of the late prince at Kensington, and of the queen at St. James's, to be fitted up for him; that the king would take Prince Edward too, and give him an allowance of ￡5,000 a-year.

"After a little consult in their small cabinet, both prince and princess sent answers in writing, drawn up, as was believed, by Legge, and so artfully worded, that the supposition was probable. The prince described himself as penetrated by the goodness of his Majesty, and receiving with the greatest gratitude what his Majesty, in his parental affection, was pleased to settle on him; but he entreated his Majesty not to divide him from his mother, which would be a most sensible affliction to both. The answer of the princess remarked, that she had observed, with the greatest satisfaction, the impression which his Majesty's consideration of the prince had made on him; and she expressed much sensibility of all the king's kindness to her. On the article of the separation, she said not a word."[15]

In the course of my studies, I have naturally gone as deeply as I could into this question of the alleged liaison between the princess and Lord Bute, and believe I have traced it to its real source. On one occasion, Miss Chudleigh appeared at a fancy ball, dressed as Iphigenia waiting for the sacrifice, and so décolletée that an eye-witness declared that she wished to display her entrails to the sacrificing priest. The princess mildly rebuked her for her licentiousness; and the maid of honour flippantly replied, "Altesse, vous savez, chacun à son b?t." The retort was clever, if impertinent, and spread like wildfire. Miss Chudleigh's last good thing was quoted, and, from this moment, I firmly believe, a hitherto floating charge became anchored. That the couple intrigued, I am willing to admit, but it was a political intrigue; a woman, who has escaped from a profligate husband, to whom she has borne nine children, does not so easily place herself in another man's power. Bute was poor; the princess was ambitious; they had the future king of England in their hands, and meant to keep him. Bute, mayhap, for ulterior purposes of his own, but the mother most certainly, because she did not believe her son capable of walking alone. Up to the day of her death, she held unbounded sway over the king; but, in no one instance, did she exert it to benefit a favourite; while in the choice of her own household, she was actuated solely by merit. Poor woman! she had but few pleasures in this world; she did her duty honestly, as she thought, and most certainly set an example to mothers by the way in which she brought up her children. The only reward she has received from posterity has been at the most a flippant sneer at her narrow-mindedness; but too often a hasty condemnation as a widow who sought consolation in the arms of her husband's friend.

Politest of epistolary Horaces, of the many sins you have to answer for, the worst is surely your deliberate attempt to blacken the character of an unoffending woman, who tried to do her duty according to her lights, and to whose fostering care we at any rate owed one George, who stands out as a shining and burning example among the four who bore the name.

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