the King came in, but by good luck, said not one
word of the pictures : his Majesty stayed about five
minutes in the gallery ; snubbed the Queen, who
was drinking chocolate, for being always stuffing ;
the Princess Emily for not hearing him ; Princess
Caroline for being grown fat ; the Duke [of Cumber-
land] for standing awkwardly ; Lord Hervey for
not knowing what relation the Prince of Sultzbach
was to the Elector Palatine : and then carried the
Queen to walk, and be resnubbed, in the garden."



28o CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

The Queen was very much perturbed by the
King's altered behaviour towards her, and she took
Sir Robert Walpole into her confidence, and asked
him what was to be done. Walpole spoke to her
with a frankness positively brutal. He told her
that since the King had tasted "better things,"
presumably the Walmoden, it could not be other
than it was ; he reminded the Queen that she was
no longer young, and said that "she should no
longer depend upon her person, but her head, for
her influence, as the one would now be of little use
to her, and the other could never fail her." No
woman likes to be told that her personal charms
are gone, and Walpole made this advice the more
unpalatable by recommending the Queen to send
for Lady Tankerville, a good looking but stupid
woman, to fill the place left vacant by Lady Suffolk.
He told the Queen that it was absolutely necessary
that the King should have some one to amuse him,
"as he could not spend his evenings with his own
daughters after having tasted the sweets of passing
them with other people's " ; therefore, it would be
much better that he should have some one chosen
by the Queen than by himself. Lady Deloraine,
who was the other likely candidate for the royal
favour, and whom the King had often noticed
when she was governess to the young Princesses,
Walpole regarded as a dangerous woman, and
therefore preferred Lady Tankerville.

The Queen resented this advice in her heart,
and was deeply hurt ; but on the surface she took



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 281

it well enough, laughing the matter off as was her
wont. She was not above making some bitter
jokes upon the situation in which she found herself.
When she was dressed for the King's birthday
drawing-room, she pointed to her head-dress and
said : "I think I am extremely fine too, though un
peu a la mode ; I think they have given me horns."
Whereupon Walpole burst into a coarse laugh, and
said he thought the tire-woman must be a wag.
The Queen laughed too, but flushed angrily.

At this same birthday drawing-room the King
noticed that it was poorly attended, and those who
came were indifferently dressed, a sure sign of his
unpopularity. The King, unpopular before, had
disgusted his English subjects by his long stay in
Hanover, and by the new ties he had formed there,
for the people had had enough of German mistresses
under George the First. Many of the great noble-
men, even the officers of state, showed their
resentment in a diplomatic manner by absenting
themselves from court and retiring into the country.
This made the King angrier than ever, and his
manner towards the Queen, who was the only person
upon whom it was safe for him to vent his displeasure,
became harsher than before. She bore it uncom-
plainingly, until one morning when he was unreason-
able beyond endurance she said half in jest, though
with tears in her eyes, that she would get Walpole
to put in a word in her favour, as nothing she now
did was right. The King flew into a passion, and
asked her what she meant by such complaints. " Do



282 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

you think," he said, " I should not feel and show
some uneasiness for having left a place where I was
pleased and happy all day long, and being come to
one where I am as incessantly crossed and plagued?"
This was a little too much for the Queen, who for
once lost her self-control and turned upon her tor-
mentor. "I see no reason," she said, "that made
your coming to England necessary; you might have
continued there, without coming to torment yourself
and us : since your pleasure did not call you, I am
sure your business did not, for we could have done
that just as well without you, as you could have
pleased yourself without us." Thereupon the King,
who was as much astonished as Balaam was when
his ass spake, went out of the room, and banged
the door.

The King endeavoured to propitiate the Queen
by making her a present of some horses from
Hanover. This was a poor sort of gift, as by
it he charged the expense of the horses on her
establishment, and used them himself; most of his
presents were of this nature. As she did not accept
the gift with becoming gratitude, he fell foul of
Merlin's Cave, which had just been completed.
The Queen told him that she heard the Craftsman
had abused her hobby. " I am very glad of it,"
said the King, "you deserve to be abused for such
childish silly stuff, and it is the first time I ever
knew the scoundrel in the right." This conversation
took place in the evening, when the King was
always peculiarly irascible. He formerly spent two



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 283

or three hours of an evening in Lady Suffolk's
apartments, snubbing and worrying her, but since
that lady had retired, and no one as yet was found
to take her place, he had perforce to spend it with
his wife and daughters, and vent his ill-humour on
them. The same evening that he abused Merlin's
Cave, he found fault with the Queen for giving
away money to servants when she went to visit the
nobility in London. The Queen defended herself
by saying that it was the custom, and appealed to
Lord Hervey, who said it was true that such largess
was expected of her Majesty. The King retorted :
"Then she may stay at home as I do. You do not
see me running into every puppy's house, to see his
new chairs and stools. Nor is it for you,'' said he,
turning to the Queen, "to be running your nose
everywhere, and trotting about the town to every
fellow that will give you some bread and butter,
like an old girl that loves to go abroad, no matter
whether it be proper or no." The Queen, who was
knotting, flushed, and tears came into her eyes, but
she answered nothing. Lord Hervey somewhat
officiously said that the Queen had a love of
pictures, whereat the King turned to the Queen
and poured forth a flood of abuse in German. She
made no reply, but knotted faster than ever until
she tangled her thread and snuffed out one of the
candles in her agitation, whereupon the King,
falling back into English, began to lecture her
on her awkwardness. This may be taken as a
specimen of the way the Royal Family spent their



284 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

evenings for some weeks after the King's return
from Hanover.

From a hundred little things, the Queen feared
that her day was over. The King always used to stay
with her till eleven o'clock in the morning, before
beginning the business of the day ; but now he
hurried off soon after nine o'clock, in order that he
might write love letters to Madame de Walmoden.
He was a great letter-writer, especially of love
letters, an art in which he excelled, and probably
inherited from his mother, Sophie Dorothea.

The only matter in which the King seemed to
be at one with his consort, at this time, was in
blaming the Prince of Wales, who took the occasion
of his father's return to renew his demands. He
had for a long time absented himself from the King's
levies, but he was prevailed upon by Doddington
to appear at one. His appearance, as the King
suspected, foreshadowed a definite demand, which
was not long in coming. The Prince requested
that he should have his full income of ^100,000 a
year, a separate establishment, and be married. It
was no use ignoring Frederick, he only became
more troublesome, so the King determined to yield
the point, which would cost him least money, and
get him married at once. He sent his son a formal
message, by five of the Cabinet Council, to say that,
if the Prince liked, he would ask for him the hand
of the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. She was
the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, and the
King had met her, as if by accident, on his last visit




AVGUSTA, PRINCESS OF WALES, AT THE TIME OP HER MARRIAGE.



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 285

to Hanover, with a view to seeing if she would be
a suitable wife for his son. It was not a gracious
way of meeting the Prince's wishes, but Frederick
answered with great propriety, that whoever his
Majesty thought a proper match for his son would
be agreeable to him. One of the most irritating
features of the Prince's conduct was that he was
always polite and circumspect to the King and
Queen in public, and disrespectful and disobedient
in private. He followed up his answer by ask-
ing how much money he was to get. When the
King, reluctantly, promised to disgorge ^50,000 a
year, the Prince expressed great dissatisfaction, but,
on the principle of half a loaf being better than no
bread, he determined to accept the sum as an instal-
ment, and let the marriage go forward.

Lord Delaware was therefore despatched to
Saxe-Gotha to complete the negotiations which had
been already set on foot, and bring the bride over
to England. These negotiations took some little
time, and the young Princess naturally wished to
pay her farewells before setting forth to an unknown
husband and an unknown land ; but the King was
so impatient to return to his Walmoden that after a
week or two he sent word to Delaware to say that
if the Princess could not come by the end of April
the marriage must either be put off till the next
winter, or solemnised without him, as to Hanover
he would go. This message had the effect of
hastening matters. The Princess Augusta landed
at Greenwich on Sunday, April 25th, 1735, and



286 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

stayed the night at the palace there. She had the
promise of beauty and the charm that always goes
with youth. At this time she looked, as she was,
an overgrown girl, tall and slender, and somewhat
awkward in her movements, but her pleasant expres-
sion and engaging manner soon won her popularity.
The poets in their odes of welcome endowed the
youthful pair with all the graces, as for example : —

That pair in Eden ne'er reposed
Where groves more lovely grew ;

Those groves in Eden ne'er enclosed
A lovelier pair than you.

The Prince of Wales went down to Greenwich
to meet his bride-elect, and was much pleased with
her. The next day she showed herself to the people
on the balcony of the palace, and was warmly
received. The young Princess was only seventeen
years of age ; she was quite alone, unaccompanied
by any relative, and could not speak a word of
English. Yet she was allowed to remain at Green-
wich forty-eight hours after her landing in England
without any one of the Royal Family going near her
except the Prince. She was treated with the same
neglect as the Prince of Orange had been treated.
The excuse put forward on behalf of the King and
Queen was that until she was Princess of Wales
there was no rule of precedence to guide them as to
how she should be received. They were no doubt
jealous of the pretensions which the Prince of Wales
put forward ; but in any case, even if they could not
have gone themselves to welcome her, they might



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 287

have sent one of the Princesses to befriend the
young and inexperienced girl in what must neces-
sarily have been a difficult and delicate position.
The Prince endeavoured to make amends for this
neglect by paying his betrothed great attention. He
came to Greenwich again the next day and dined
with his future bride. " He afterwards," we are told,
"gave her Highness the diversion of passing on the
water as far as the Tower and back in his baro-e,
finely adorned, preceded by a concert of music.
Their Highnesses afterwards supped in public."^

The next morning the Princess was escorted
from Greenwich in one of the royal coaches to
Lambeth, and thence she proceeded down the river
to Whitehall in a barge. At Whitehall she landed,
and was carried through St. James's Park in a sedan
chair to the garden entrance of St. James's Palace,
where the Prince of Wales, who had preceded her,
was waiting. The Prince led his betrothed up to
the great drawing-room, where the King and Queen
and all the court were ready to receive her, and
curious to see what she was like. The Kingf had
been waiting more than an hour, for the Princess
was late, and he was consequently impatient, and
not in the best of tempers, but the young girl by
her tact overcame any awkwardness that might
have attended her reception. She prostrated her-
self at the King's feet, and made a similar obei-
sance to the Queen. Her behaviour throughout this
trying ceremony was marked by such propriety and

^ Gentleman'' s Magazine, April, 1736.



288 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

discretion, that she immediately created a favourable
impression, and did away with any prejudice against
her.

The Princess was not allowed much time to rest
after her journey, for the marriage was arranged to
take place that night, at nine o'clock in the Chapel
Royal, St. James's. Before the ceremony the King
and Queen, to avoid vexed questions of precedence,
dined in private, but the Duke of Cumberland
and the Princesses were commanded to dine with
the Prince and his betrothed. Unfortunately the
harmony of this family party was marred by quarrels
over minute questions of ceremony. The King,
with a view to overcoming any difficulties, had
ordered the Duke and the Princesses to go " un-
dressed," that is, informally, and in other clothes
than those they were to wear later at the wedding.
The Prince resented this as a slight upon himself
and his bride, and in return began disputing as to
where, and how, his brother and sisters should sit at
dinner. He demanded that they should be seated
upon stools without any backs, whilst he and
his bride occupied armchairs at the head of the
table ; also that he and his bride should be served
on bended knee, while the others should be waited
upon in the ordinary manner. The King and
Queen had anticipated some of those difficulties, and
had coached the Princesses beforehand in what they
were to do. So they flatly refused to go into the
room where dinner was served until the stools had
been carried away and chairs put in their places,



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 289

but they so far yielded the other point as to order
their personal servants to wait upon them in the
usual manner. Thus the wedding dinner passed
off, if not exactly harmoniously, without any more
childish disputes, though the Princesses went with-
out their coffee as it was offered to them by a ser-
vant of the bride. The dinner, and the altercations
in connection with it, occupied the best part of the
afternoon, and the bride had scarcely time to dress
for the wedding.

The wedding procession was formed at eight
o'clock, and it took some time to marshal. The
peers and peeresses, and other personages invited to
the wedding, met in the great drawing-room of St.
James's, and then walked in order of precedence to
the chapel. The Bishop of London performed the
marriage ceremony, and the joining of hands was
made known to the public by the firing of guns in
St. James's Park. The following extract from a
contemporary print gives the best account of the
ceremony : —

" Her Highness was in her hair, wearing a crown
with one bar, as Princess of Wales, set all over with
diamonds ; her robe likewise, as Princess of Wales,
being of crimson velvet, turned back with several
rows of ermine, and having her train supported by
four ladies, all of whom were in virgin habits of
silver, like the Princess, and adorned with diamonds
not less in value than from twenty to thirty thousand
pounds each. Her Highness was led by his Royal
Highness the Duke of Cumberland, and conducted

VOL. II. 19



290 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

by His Grace the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamber-
lain of the Household, and the Lord Hervey, Vice-
Chamberlain, and attended by the Countess of
Effingham, and the other ladies of her household.
The marriage service was read by the Lord Bishop
of London, Dean of the Chapel ; and, after the same
was over, a fine anthem was performed by a great
number of voices and instruments. When the pro-
cession returned, his Royal Highness led his bride ;
and coming into the drawing-room, their Royal High-
nesses kneeled down and received their Majesties'
blessing. At half-an-hour after ten their Majesties
sat down to supper in ambigu, the Prince and the
Duke being on the King's right hand, and the
Princess of Wales and the four Princesses on the
â– Queen's left. Their Majesties retiring to the apart-
ments of the Prince of Wales, the bride was
conducted to her bedchamber, the bridegroom
to his dressing-room, where the Duke undressed
him, and his Majesty did his Royal Highness
the honour • to put on his shirt. The bride was
undressed by the Princesses, and, being in bed in
a rich undress, his Majesty came into the room,
the Prince following soon after in a night-gown of
silver stuff, and cap of the finest lace. The Quality
were admitted to see the bride and bridegroom
sitting up in bed surrounded by all the Royal
Family." ^

The King had grumbled because there were few
new clothes at his birthday drawing-room, but no

^ Gentleman' s Magazine, April, 1736.



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 291

such complaint could be made on this occasion, for
the splendour and richness of the costumes had
never been excelled. The Georgian beau was a
gorgeous being ; the men seemed to outshine the
ladies. We read : —

"His Majesty was dressed in a gold brocade,
turned up with silk, embroidered with large flowers
in silver and colours, as was the waistcoat ; the
buttons and stars were diamonds. Her Majesty
was in plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls,
diamonds, and other jewels of immense value. The
Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, and St. Albans, the
Earl of Albemarle, Lord Hervey, Colonel Pelham
and many other noblemen, were in gold brocades
of from three to five hundred pounds a suit. The
Duke of Marlborough was in a white velvet and
gold brocade, upon which was an exceedingly rich
point (TEspagne. The Earl of Euston and many
others were in clothes flowered or sprigged with
gold ; the Duke of Montagu in a gold brocaded
tissue. The waistcoats were universally brocades,
with large flowers. 'Twas observed most of the
rich clothes were the manufacture of England, and
in honour of our own artists. The few which were
French did not come up to these in richness, good-
ness, or fancy, as was seen by the clothes worn by
the Royal Family, which were all of the British
manufacture. The cuffs of the sleeves were
universally deep and open, the waists long, and
the plaits more sticking out than ever. The ladies
were principally in brocades of gold and silver, and



292 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

wore their sleeves much lower than hath been done
for some time." ^

After her marriage the Princess of Wales main-
tained the favourable impression she created at
first, a notable feat considering that she had been
brought up in the seclusion of her mother's country-
house in Saxe-Gotha, and had come to a Court
far more splendid than any she could have ever
dreamed of Walpole, who noted how she had won
the King's approval and gained the Prince's esteem,
declared that these "were circumstances that spoke
strongly in favour of brains which had but seventeen
years to ripen ". Lord Waldegrave testified that
the Princess distinguished herself " by a most decent
and prudent behaviour, and the King, notwith-
standing his aversion to his son, behaved to her
not only with great politeness, but with the appear-
ance of cordiality and affection ". Even old Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, who hated Queen Caroline,
and generally had a bad word to say for every one,
relented in favour of the Princess, declaring that
she "always appeared good-natured and civil to
everybody ". The Princess's subsequent conduct
justified these praises, and she showed herself as
the years went by to be a clever woman, with
considerable force of character.

At first her position was exceedingly difficult in
consequence of the strained relations between the
Prince and his parents. She necessarily saw more
of the Queen than of the King, and though the

^ Gentleinan's Magazine, April, 1736.



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 293

Queen's kindness to her never wavered, there was
always a barrier of reserve between them, for the
Prince had now come to dislike his mother even
more than his father. Just before his marriage the
Queen had had a difference with her son over the
question whether Lady Archibald Hamilton was, or
was not, to be one of the ladies in waiting to the
Princess ; the Prince wishing her to be appointed,
and the Queen declaring that it was not proper
that the Prince's mistress should be one of his
wife's household. She was undoubtedly right, but
the Prince might have retorted, and he probably
did, that he was only following precedent, since
Lady Suffolk had filled a similar position in the
household of his parents. The matter was com-
promised by only three ladies in waiting being
appointed by the Queen, and the Princess was left
free to nominate one other when she arrived. The
Prince gained such an ascendency over his wife
that the first thing she did was to appoint Lady
Archibald Hamilton, who soon became her constant
companion. Lady Archibald was not a wise adviser
to the young Princess even in minor matters, or
perhaps she deliberately set about to make her look
ridiculous. The Princess was quite ignorant of the
customs of the English Court, and was imbued by
her husband with a stroncj sense of what was due
to her as Princess of Wales. Either at his bidding
or Lady Archibald's suggestion, she took to walking
in Kensington Gardens with two gentlemen-ushers
going before her, a chamberlain leading her by the



294 CAROLINE THE ILLUSTRIOUS

hand, a page holding up her long train, and her
maids of honour and ladies in waiting following
behind. The Queen met this grotesque procession
one morning when she was out on her walks, and
burst into peals of laughter. The poor Princess of
Wales, who was not conscious of having done any-
thing wrong, begged to know the reason of her
Majesty's merriment, whereupon the gentle Princess
Caroline so far forgot her gentleness as to tell her
sister-in-law, tartly, that it was ridiculous for her to
walk out like a tragedy queen, when she was merely
taking the air privately in the gardens.

If the King and Queen had thought to pacify
their eldest son by yielding to his wish to be married,
they quickly found themselves mistaken. The Prince
accepted this concession only as an instalment, and
immediately began to ask for more. He did not con-
sider his demand for a separate establishment met
by his being given apartments in the royal palaces,
and he refused to be contented with anything less
than the full sum voted for him by Parliament.
The King stoutly refused to yield more and ex-
pressed himself very forcibly on, what he called, his
son's ungrateful conduct. Thus baffled, the Prince
began to raise money right and left by giving bills
and bonds payable on the death of his father and
his own accession to the throne, and the money-
lenders were willing to advance him money on these
conditions at an extortionate rate of interest. When
the King heard of this he became greatly frightened
lest the rapacity of the usurers should cause them to



MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 295

hasten his death by assassination. The Queen feared
for the King's safety too, and had long- talks with
Walpole and Lord Hervey on the subject. Lord
Hervey, who hated the Prince, offered to bring for-
ward a bill in the House of Lords making it a capital
offence for any man to lend money on the considera-
tion of the King's death, but Walpole wisely pooh-
poohed the idea. He strongly objected to bringing
the disputes of the Royal Family before the public,
and told the Queen he could see no way of keeping
the Prince in order except through the good influence
of the Princess of Wales. The Queen then tried to
discuss matters with the Princess, but, coached by
her husband, she would not listen. She was very
sorry she said, but her Majesty must excuse her,
she must decline to take any part in the con-
troversy. Whatever her husband did was right in
her eyes and it was her duty to obey him, whom