CHAPTER X.LENGTHENING SHADOWS.The Prince of Wales’s marriage to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick—Her character—The Prince’s behaviour at the marriage ceremony—Lord Holland’s two accounts of the Princess irreconcileable—The Prince’s hatred of the Princess—Propriety of the Queen’s Court—Unpopularity of the King—Pelted by the mob—Birth of the Princess Charlotte—Strict observance of Court etiquette—Marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Wurtemburg—First book stereotyped in England—The volunteer mania—Attempted assassination of the King—Archbishop Cornwallis’s drums, and Lady Huntingdon’s efforts to induce him to discontinue—Her hot reception by Mrs. Cornwallis—Lady Huntingdon induces the King to aid her—The King’s letter to the archbishop—Conduct of the clergy—Incident of the Drawing-room—The Prince a Radical—The King’s illness—His excitement—Feeling exhibited by the Duke of York—The Prince of Wales incredulous of the recovery of the King—Conversation between the King and Dr. Willis—The Queen’s anxiety—Particulars of the King’s illness—Recovery of the King—Home scene at Windsor Castle.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick—Her character—The Prince’s behaviour at the marriage ceremony—Lord Holland’s two accounts of the Princess irreconcileable—The Prince’s hatred of the Princess—Propriety of the Queen’s Court—Unpopularity of the King—Pelted by the mob—Birth of the Princess Charlotte—Strict observance of Court etiquette—Marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Wurtemburg—First book stereotyped in England—The volunteer mania—Attempted assassination of the King—Archbishop Cornwallis’s drums, and Lady Huntingdon’s efforts to induce him to discontinue—Her hot reception by Mrs. Cornwallis—Lady Huntingdon induces the King to aid her—The King’s letter to the archbishop—Conduct of the clergy—Incident of the Drawing-room—The Prince a Radical—The King’s illness—His excitement—Feeling exhibited by the Duke of York—The Prince of Wales incredulous of the recovery of the King—Conversation between the King and Dr. Willis—The Queen’s anxiety—Particulars of the King’s illness—Recovery of the King—Home scene at Windsor Castle.
The Prince of Wales’s marriage to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick—Her character—The Prince’s behaviour at the marriage ceremony—Lord Holland’s two accounts of the Princess irreconcileable—The Prince’s hatred of the Princess—Propriety of the Queen’s Court—Unpopularity of the King—Pelted by the mob—Birth of the Princess Charlotte—Strict observance of Court etiquette—Marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Wurtemburg—First book stereotyped in England—The volunteer mania—Attempted assassination of the King—Archbishop Cornwallis’s drums, and Lady Huntingdon’s efforts to induce him to discontinue—Her hot reception by Mrs. Cornwallis—Lady Huntingdon induces the King to aid her—The King’s letter to the archbishop—Conduct of the clergy—Incident of the Drawing-room—The Prince a Radical—The King’s illness—His excitement—Feeling exhibited by the Duke of York—The Prince of Wales incredulous of the recovery of the King—Conversation between the King and Dr. Willis—The Queen’s anxiety—Particulars of the King’s illness—Recovery of the King—Home scene at Windsor Castle.
Thesubject of the marriage of the Prince of Wales will come more fully under our notice in the Life of Caroline of Brunswick. Here it may be mentioned that the period at which the question of the marriage of the Prince was first moved, is not known with certainty. It was soon, however, publicly ascertained that whenever that much-desired event should take place the Prince’s debts were to be paid, on the condition that after such settlement and the fixing of his establishment as a married man, he was never to incur such liabilities again. The agreeing to this condition debarred him from ever again applying to Parliament for pecuniary relief.
There is little doubt as to the wish of Queen Charlottethat her son should marry a Princess of Mecklenburg. It was sufficient for the Prince that his mother had such desire that he should oppose it. According to Lord Liverpool, the intimation of the Prince’s wish to marry was abruptly made to the King, who received the information with a cheerful complacency, and simply required that the lady chosen should be a Protestant and a Princess. Mrs. Fitzherbert was neither.
The King offered to send a commissioner to the German courts on the pleasant mission of reviewing the daughters of the sovereign dukes there, and reporting on their eligibility. The Prince’s choice, however, appears to have been made, if that can be called choice which fixes on an object utterly unknown. He named his cousin, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick. Her mother was Augusta, sister of the King, whose birth had taken place at St. James’s Palace under circumstances which gave such offence to Caroline and George II. The King made no objection: and yet he must have known that if the object selected was pretty, she was far less fair than the lady of Mecklenburg whom Charlotte would fain have had for a daughter-in-law; and that her reputation, even in Germany, where the best people then construed liberally of female conduct, was none of the best. She was known as a bold, dashing, careless girl, whose tongue was ever in advance of reflection; who called the coarsest things by the coarsest names, and who only needed temptation and opportunity to fall into any sin which had a pleasant side to it. She was not worse than many of her contemporaries with whose doings fame was less busy. Her great defect was a want of self-control, if that be a great defect compared with a want of cleanliness. But in this latter respect Caroline’s neglect was not singular. Inheryoung days dirtiness had not yet quite gone out of fashion.
It is credibly asserted that the Prince’s favourite, Lady Jersey, led him to select the Princess of Brunswick for his wife. It was Lady Jersey’s object that he should have a legal consort who must draw him away from his (illegal) wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert; but it was also Lady Jersey’s object that the wife should not possess attractions that should prove more powerful than her own.
It will suffice to record here that the marriage took place on the 8th of April, 1795, under unseemly auspices. The behaviour of the Prince at the ceremony undoubtedly may be received as confirming the accounts of his aversion to the bride. He confessed to the Duke of Bedford (one of the two unmarried dukes who supported him at the marriage) that he had taken several glasses of brandy before proceeding to it. He must have taken many, for he was so drunk that the two dukes could scarcely keep him from falling. The conduct of the Prince was, of course, the subject of much remark, and it was set down, at the time, not to brandy but remorse—remorse at the idea of that other marriage which he had contracted with the woman whom he undoubtedly did love, if he ever entertained for woman at all a sentiment worthy of that name. Very few days passed after the solemnisation of the ceremony before ‘many coarse and indelicate strictures on the bride’s person and behaviour were currently reported as coming directly from the Prince in every society in London.’ So says Lord Holland; and that noble writer, who pronounces to be a bad and worthless woman—mad, at least, if not bad—a princess whom his party, if not he himself, held up, in the days of her persecution, as a martyr of virtue, goes on to say, that the ill-usage to which the Princess of Wales was exposed at Brighton and elsewhere from the Prince and his mistress, Lady Jersey, was notorious, unpardonable, and so utterly disgraceful, ‘that persons of rank (afterwards indebted to him for advancementin it) have plumed themselves upon refusing to meet him at dinner at my house [Holland House, Kensington], observing that he was not fit company for gentlemen.’
The marriage began miserably, continued miserably, and ended miserably. As Lord Holland observes, neither the Prince’s reconciliation with Mrs. Fitzherbert nor his subsequent intimacies with Lady Hertford and others (although such returns and changes of love were usually accompanied by similar changes and returns of a train of favourites, friends, and dependents), ever softened his hatred to the Princess. When, in 1820, on the death of Napoleon, some officious courtier ran up to him to apprise him of the news which he supposed would be welcome to him, in these words, ‘Sir, your greatest enemy is dead!’—‘Isshe, by G—?’ was the royal husband’s dignified and pious ejaculation.
‘Many seeds of discontent,’ says Lord Holland, ‘were imperceptibly sown during the year 1795, among the supporters of the ministry, which time brought to maturity. Among these may be reckoned the influence of Carlton House. The Prince of Wales thought himself duped by Mr. Pitt about the payment of his debts at the time of his marriage. He had been treated superciliously, more than once, by Mr. Pitt, and he had never liked him, though his own dread of revolutionary principles, quickened by a recent quarrel with the Duke of Orleans, had rendered him eager, and even vociferous, for the war. The last injury, real or supposed, which he had received from Mr. Pitt, by the latter’s acquiescing in devoting, on his marriage, the whole increase of his revenue to the payment of his debts, sank into his weak and fretful mind deeper than usual, because he was continually reminded of it by his connection with a woman whom he loathed.’
Meanwhile, the Queen maintained the long-standing reputation of her court with undiminished strictness. ‘The Queen’s public receptions,’ says Sir Jonah Barrington, ‘were the most gracious in the world. There could not be a more engaging, kind, and condescending address than that of the Queen of England. An illustration of her strictness is afforded us by an anecdote told of her Majesty and an English duchess, who was aunt to a niece of rather blemished reputation, but to which it was hoped some lustre might be restored if she could only be made to pass through a court atmosphere. The duchess, on asking the Queen to receive her niece at the drawing-room, of course insisted that the young lady’s fame had been unfairly attacked, and that she trusted to her Majesty’s clemency and generosity to set it fair again with the world. The Queen remained silent; whereupon the duchess, previous to retiring, beseechingly inquired what she might be permitted to say to her niece. ‘Tell her,’ said Queen Charlotte, ‘that you did not dare to make such a request to the Queen.’ The duchess, who held some post in the royal household, felt that such a speech involved her own dismissal.
Never was the court so unpopular as at this time. In October 1795 the King, on proceeding to the House of Lords, was not only assailed by seditious cries, but was fired at by some assassin among the mob. On his return from the House he was pelted with stones, and, later in the day, when driving to the Queen’s House, in a private carriage, without guards, the excited mob, with cries of ‘Bread—cheap bread!’ ‘No war!’ and ‘No king!’ made an attempt to force open the door of the vehicle in which he was riding. The same spirit was shown in 1796. On the 1st of February the King and Queen went to Drury Lane to see ‘The Fugitive.’ On their return a stone was thrown at the carriage, which passed throughone of the glass panels and struck the Queen in the face. Soon after a female maniac was discovered in the palace, making no secret of sanguinary designs against ‘Mrs. Guelph,’ her alleged ‘mother.’ Added to these private vexations, the negotiation entered into, at the King’s express desire, to establish a peace with France, entirely failed, and the difficulties of the situation were further increased by Spain uniting with our other enemies against us in war.
In the month previous to that last mentioned the birth of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince and Princess of Wales, was speedily followed by the separation of the parents. We may cite here an incident of the christening, as the Queen Charlotte is rather the heroine thereof than the infant Princess.
Lady Townshend held the little Princess at the font. Some time elapsed before the officiating prelate took her from Lady Townshend, whose state of health at the time was such as to make her incapable of standing long without some peril to her own future hopes. The Princess of Wales pitied her, and asked the Queen, in a low voice, if she would not command poor Lady Townshend to be seated. But Queen Charlotte liked nothing so little as an interruption of established ceremony; and, blowing the snuff from her fingers, she exclaimed, ‘No, no! she may stand—she may stand!’ The Queen was nearly as strict in public with her own children. They, on such occasions, never sat down in her presence unless commanded; never spoke, unless first spoken to; and once, it is said, when the Queen was playing at whist, one of the Princesses, standing behind her chair, fell fast asleep from sheer fatigue.
The domestic troubles of the Queen were now in great part connected with the affairs of her eldest son and her daughter-in-law. They will be found alluded to in theLife of the latter. Another marriage, scarcely more promising, soon occupied her attention. The widowed Prince of Wurtemburg proposed for the hand of the Princess Royal. His first wife was the daughter of Augusta, and sister of the Caroline of Brunswick for whom the Queen, her mother-in-law, had such small measure of affection. This first marriage had been an unhappy one. The Prince had taken his wife to Russia, where she is said to have become so thoroughly corrupted as to have shocked the unclean Czarina, Catherine, herself. From Russia she never returned; but how, when, or where she died, no writer seems to be able to state with certainty. That she died there in confinement cannot be doubted; and yet her sister Caroline used to express her belief that she had been seen in Italy long after the reported period of her death. Queen Charlotte had an especial dislike to the projected match of this Prince with her daughter, nor would the King consent until he had been satisfied that the Prince had not been a cruel husband to his first wife, and that he had not become a widower by unfair means. What the nature of this satisfaction was no one knows. The marriage took place on the 18th of May. After a thirty years’ residence in Wurtemburg, during which time that locality was raised to the rank of a kingdom, and the daughter of our own Charlotte was visited more than once by the first Napoleon, of whom her husband was a very active ally, Charlotte Augusta, the ‘good Queen-dowager,’ and a childless widow, visited England once more, in order to obtain medical relief for a dropsical complaint. On her voyage back, in worse health than when she came hither, the vessel had nearly perished in a storm. To her terrified attendants she calmly remarked, ‘We are as surely under the protection of God here as upon the dry land—be not afraid!’ She survived her mother ten years, dying in October, 1828. Her lettersaddressed to the lady who superintended the education of the Princess Charlotte of Wales are creditable alike to her head and her heart.
The Princess Royal was married in 1797. Soon after she had set out from St. James’s, early on a morning in June, in tears, and without a relation to bid her adieu, all having gone through that ceremony the night before, in order to be saved the trouble of early rising, the mutiny in the navy broke out—a circumstance which hardly annoyed the King more than the agitation for Parliamentary reform; for it was more easily suppressed. There was some compensation for these vexations in the visit to Duncan’s victorious North Sea fleet, and in the triumphs of our other naval squadrons. The year ended appropriately with the royal procession to St. Paul’s to render fervent thanksgiving for the success of the arms of England.
It was early in 1798 that the first book was stereotyped in England, and the Queen was the origin of this innovation—not that she had any idea of innovation. The facts are simply these:—The press had been teeming with productions offensive alike to virtue and religion. To protect both was an anxious object with the Queen. According to contemporary report, she procured from a German Lutheran divine (Freylighausen) his ‘Abstract of the whole Doctrine of the Christian Religion,’ and this she submitted to the judgment of Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London. The prelate, well pleased to see the State thus submissive or suggestive to the Church, read the pamphlet—not only read it, but approved of, and (as it was said, erroneously) translated it into English. He caused it to be printed in stereotype, and this translated book was the first volume that was ever so printed in England. With stereotyping, the name of Queen Charlotte should always be mentioned in honourable connection.
The year 1798 was marked by the Irish rebellion, the national subscription for the exigencies of the state, and for the uneasiness felt at court at the standing toast of the Whigs—‘The sovereignty of the people!’ That and the following year weretheyears of the Volunteer mania. The King and Queen were too happy to encourage this sort of enthusiasm; and, even in their retirement at Weymouth, the Volunteer reviews were among the most cherished of their amusements. They hoped they had reconquered the love of a people on whom the burden of war pressed heavily. They were at least not safe from popular fanaticism. On the 15th of May, 1800, the royal family attended Drury Lane Theatre, after a review in the morning. As the King entered the box, and was in the act of bowing to the audience, he was fired at from the pit. The Queen and her daughters were entering as the shot was fired; and the King kept them back with his hand, lest, as he said, ‘there might be another.’ After Hatfield, the assassin, had been secured and carried off, the King and his family sat calmly down, and witnessed the whole representation. This coolness was deservedly admired. On the return to the palace the King replied to a sympathising observation of the Queen, ‘I am going to bed with a confidence that I shall sleep soundly; and my prayer is that the poor unhappy prisoner who aimed at my life may rest as quietly as I shall.’
The other domestic incidents in the life of the Queen or King are not of sufficient interest to be worth the detail. We may make exception of one, however, which introduces us once more to the earnest and indefatigable Lady Huntingdon.
Early in the present century we again meet with this lady, busy at, with, and in defiance of courts. In her zeal as a reformer of manners and morals, she was bold without being indiscreet; and she was never more boldthan when she attacked, courteously and courageously, no less a person than Dr. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury. This right reverend lord primate had given several grand routs at his palace. The archbishop was an old-fashioned man; and what had been tolerated in his father and mother must also be permitted to himself and wife, the magnificent Mrs. Cornwallis—leader and slave ofton. Let the world have justice done to it, the majority therein were sorely scandalised at these irreverend proceedings. But Lady Huntingdon was the only one bold enough to give expression to what she felt. With the energy and tact natural to such a woman she contrived to obtain the grant of an audience with the primate and his lady, and thither she went, accompanied by the Marquis of Townshend.
The priests of the sacred cities of Anahuac were not more horror-stricken when Cortez asked them to burn their gods, than the primate of all England was when the good lady pressed upon him sacrifices which would entail the necessity of spending very dull evenings. As for Mrs. Cornwallis, she tarred and feathered Lady Huntingdon, metaphorically, by flinging missiles which soiled her who flung them, and by scattering light ridicule which was blown back upon the face and reputation of the scatterer. Lady Huntingdon again and again assaulted the archi-episcopal fortress, but she was driven back by repeated discharges of ‘Methodist!’ and ‘Hypocrite!’
She could do nothing at Lambeth, and accordingly she turned her face towards Kew. Nor had she long to wait before Queen Charlotte and her royal consort admitted her to an interview, to which she was conducted by Lord Dartmouth and the Duchess of Ancaster.
The sovereigns listened to the simple yet earnest story. The King was especially warm in expressing his indignation, and the Queen took her full share in such expression.‘I had heard something of this before,’ said George III., ‘but I knew not if all was as bad as Lady Huntingdon has detailed it. The archbishop has behaved very ill to the lady. I will see if he dare refuse to listen to a King.’ The gay and orthodox courtiers present began to think that the world was at an end. Here was the State placing itself above the Church! Mentally, they no doubt denied the royal supremacy.
In an after-conversation the honest King confessed that Lady Huntingdon herself had been painted to him in very odd colours, and, in admitting her to an interview, he was partly influenced by his curiosity to see whether she was so strange a creature as she had been described by her enemies. To his expressions of admiration for herself and her work the Queen added similar assurances; and could the archbishop have seen two sovereigns thus complimenting a ‘Methodist’ and a ‘Hypocrite,’ no doubt the primate, zealous for nightly ‘drums,’ would have burst into tears, and have declared that the sun of England was set for ever!
‘His Majesty,’ said Queen Charlotte, ‘had complaints made against yourself, in part, Lady Huntingdon, but chiefly against your students and ministers, whose preaching annoys one or two of our bishops who are careless.’ The King nodded assent, adding, it was a pity that these students and ministers could not be made bishops of, as then they would cease to annoy anyone by preaching. It was objected that even the Lady Huntingdon could not be made a bishop of, and so the evil would be as rife as ever. ‘I wish we could make her one,’ said the Queen, with a smile at the idea; ‘I am sure her ladyship would shame more than one upon the bench!’
The King then conversed with Lady Huntingdon, chiefly upon old times and persons of his father’s court, at which she had for a while been a frequent visitor. ‘Wediscussed a great many subjects,’ says the lady herself, in her account of the interview, ‘for the conversation lasted upwards of an hour, without intermission. The Queen,’ she adds, ‘spoke a good deal, asked many questions, and, before I retired, insisted on my taking some refreshments. On parting, I was permitted to kiss their Majesties’ hands; and when I returned my humble and most grateful acknowledgments for their very great condescension, their Majesties immediately assured me they both felt gratified and pleased with the interview, which they were so obliging as to wish might be renewed.’
The Queen repeatedly expressed her admiration of Lady Huntingdon’s conduct on this occasion, one result of which was a stringent letter addressed by the King to the primate. In this royal remonstrance and reproof, the writer told the archbishop that he ‘held such levities and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a residence for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence ... where so many have led their lives in such sanctity as has thrown lustre on the pure religion they professed and adorned. From the dissatisfaction,’ adds the King, ‘with which you must perceive I hold these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and on still more pious principles, I trust that you will suppress them immediately, so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of my displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner.’
When it was necessary to administer such a reproof as this to an archbishop, we may readily believe that only a sorry sort of reputation attached itself to the clergy generally. This had been the case for many years. Speaking of the Queen’s drawing-room, held in January, 1777, Cumberland, who was present, says: ‘Sir George Warren had his order snatched off his ribbon, encircled withdiamonds to the value of 700l.Foote was there and lays it upon the parsons, having secured, as he says, his gold snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket upon seeing so many black gowns in the room.’
Foote’s remark was only in jest, but it shows the estimation in which the clergy were held. They were for the most part, and yet with some noble exceptions, but wretched teachers both by precept and example. Where clerical instruction was thus doubly defective, lay practice was not of a very pure character. Only two or three years before Lady Huntingdon waited on Queen Charlotte and the King at Kew, an incident illustrative of my remark occurred at one of her Majesty’s drawing-rooms. A great crowd had assembled, and amid the throng—while the Prince of Wales was conversing with the King—he felt a sudden pull made at the hilt of his sword. He looked down and perceived that the diamond guard of the weapon was broken off, but it remained suspended by a small piece of wire, the elasticity of which had prevented it from breaking, and so preserved the diamond-studded guard. No discovery was made as to the author of this felonious attempt, and the Prince did wisely in refusing to fix on the gentleman who stood nearest to his side as the offender.
In 1801 the Prince of Wales was in full opposition against the crown and Pitt. The opposition had a Jacobinical character, and affected Jacobinical opinion without any reserve. Lord Malmesbury remarks of the Prince that even ‘his language in the streets is such as would better become a member of Opposition than the heir to these kingdoms.’ This conduct was followed at a time when the state of the King’s health began again to cause some anxiety. He had contracted a chill and severe cramps by remaining too long in a cold church, on the 13th of February. We find Lord Malmesbury recording on the 17thof February: ‘King got a bad cold. Takes James’s powders. God forbid he-should be ill!’ And the next day he writes: ‘King-better. Lord Radnor saw him yesterday morning, and he clearly hadonlya bad cold.’ One day later, on occasion of an audience of the King being sought by Mr. Pelham, the same writer says: ‘Pelham came back to me from court; he had seen and consulted the Duke of Portland, who approved his seeing the King, but said it would not beto-day, as the King was unwell, and on such occasions it was not usual to disturb him but on great public business.’ On the 21st matters appeared worse. ‘Bad accounts from Queen’s House; the answer at the door is, the King is better: but it is not so. He took a strong emetic on Thursday, and was requested to take another to-day, which he resisted.’ It would seem that the progressive seriousness of the symptoms produced no corresponding effects in the heir-apparent. On Sunday, the 22nd of February, the diarist writes: ‘His Majesty still bilious; not getting better; apprehensions of getting worse. Fatal consequence of Pitt’s hasty resignation. Princess Amelia unwell. Queen not well. At Carlton House they dance and sing.’ As the King grew worse, the intrigues of the husband of Caroline became more active. The regency was the object of these intrigues. In the meantime the condition of the Sovereign grew daily more unsatisfactory. On the 29th of February the King’s pulse was at 130 during the night. ‘This makes,’ says Lord Malmesbury, ‘in favour of the mental derangement, and proves it to be only the effect of delirium in consequence of fever, but it puts his life in very great danger.’
His mind had been extraordinarily excited at this period by an agitation which was being carried on against the Church, and in favour of the emancipation of the Romanists. The King had strong views of what he was bound to by the coronation oath, and the idea becamethe rooted torment of his mind. ‘The King, on Monday,’ writes Lord Malmesbury, ‘after having remained many hours without speaking, at last, towards the evening, came to himself, and said, “I am better now, but will remain true to the Church.” This leaves little doubt as to the idea uppermost in his mind. And the physicians do not scruple to say that, although his Majesty certainly had a bad cold, and would under all circumstances have been ill, yet that the hurry and vexation of all that has past was the cause of his mental illness, which, if it had shown itself at all, would certainly not have declared itself so violently, or been of a nature to cause any alarm, had not these events taken place.’ They were events which were weighing on the mind of George III., just as the loss of the American colonies had done in the preceding century.
The Duke of York at this juncture is said to have behaved with great propriety towards Queen Charlotte and the Princesses. How his elder brother behaved is thus recorded: ‘The Prince of Wales, on Sunday, the 22nd of February, the second day of the King’s illness, and when he was at his worst, went in the evening to a concert at Lady Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne, the rascally French ex-minister, “Savez vous, M. de Calonne, que mon père est aussi fou que jamais?”’ Later we have it recorded, that ‘the King at Windsor, about 6th or 7th instant (March), read his coronation oath to his family;—asked them whether they understood it? and added, If I violate it I am no longer legal sovereign of this country, but it falls to the house of Savoy.’ Subsequently, Lord Malmesbury writes: ‘Lady Salisbury said the King was quite well enough to have the Queen and Princesses at dinner.Qui prouve trop ne prouve rien.Any degree of fever could render this improper in anybody, and if you take away the fever, you have the intellectual derangement without a cause or hopes of recovery. I fear thereis so much fever that his life is in imminent peril. The Duke of York deeply affected, and worn out with his assiduous attentions at the Queen’s House.’
Lord Vincent, the first lord of the admiralty, declared on the 2nd of March that not only was his Majesty much better, but that, throughout the present attack, he had never been so ill as he was at the moment when, in his previous illness, he had been pronounced by Warren to be convalescent. The King’s fever increased alarmingly that very night. On Tuesday, the 3rd of March, Lord Malmesbury thus graphically describes the crisis: ‘King so much worse last night that his life was despaired of. About ten he fell into a profound sleep; and awoke in about six hours quite refreshed and quite himself. His Majesty said he was thirsty, and, on being asked what he wished to drink, said, “ifallowed, a glass of cold water.” This was given him. It put him into a perspiration. He fell asleep again, and awoke in the morning with the fever abated, and better in every respect. The crisis of his disorder. Crowds of people round Queen’s House, and their expressions of joy very great.’
The cure, however, was not yet complete. Much care was required. The King was disposed to talk on that very subject which had temporarily threatened to overthrow his intellect. And his anxiety for the Church, joined to seeing and conversing with two of his daughters before he was strong enough to argue the question connected with one, or to bear the pleasant excitement of intercourse with his family, produced a disagreeable, although not an enduring, relapse.
The Prince of Wales was the most reluctant of his family to believe in the recovery of his father, whom he openly declared as being more deranged than ever, although he might possibly be improving in bodily health. He affected to complain of being kept in ignorance of whatwas going on at the Queen’s House; but his ignorance arose from the little care he gave himself to become wiser.
The recovery, however, was considered genuine. The illness itself had been marked by one circumstance which distinguishes it from that under which the King suffered so severely in 1788. In the earlier attack sleep never relieved him. Not that he did not sleep well, but that it did not compose his nervous system. He would sleep indeed, soundly, but awake from it, like a giant refreshed by wine, more turbulent than ever. In the illness from which he had just recovered his sleep was healthy and refreshing, and he invariably woke from it quiet and composed.
The first persons whom he saw after his recovery were the Queen and Princesses and the Dukes of Kent and Cumberland. To the Duke of York, whom he saw alone on the 7th of March, he said, after thanking him for his kindness to his mother and sisters, ‘I saw them yesterday, because I could sendthemaway at any time; but I wish to see youalone, and for a long time, and therefore I put it off till to-day.’ In inquiring about the Queen’s health of the Duke of York, the King expressed great solicitude for them; and the Duke acknowledged that they had suffered greatly, but added, that their chief anxiety was lest now, in getting well, he should be less careful about his health than prudence would warrant. The King confessed to having presumed too much on the strength of his constitution, but promised to be less neglectful for the future. And the conversation turned to political affairs, to the ministry, to what had been done during his malady, and at last to that question of Romanist emancipation which had so shaken his mind, as being connected with that ruin of the Church of England which he thought must follow, and which church he had sworn he wouldprotect. Some weeks before his illness he had said to the Duke of Portland that, ‘were he to agree to it, he should betray his trust and forfeit his crown, that it might bring the framers of it the gibbet.’ He was beginning to use language almost as strong to the Duke of York, at the first introduction between father and son, after the recovery of the former. The Duke of York, however, very judiciously stopped him, with the assurance that Pitt had abandoned all idea of pressing the Catholic question, that therefore it were wise to let the discussion of it drop also; and that all political parties, who had behaved with great propriety during his illness, had now but one common anxiety—that to see him well again. ‘I am nowquitewell;QUITErecovered from my illness,’ remarked the King to Mr. Willis, on the occasion of directing him to write to Pitt, ‘but what hashenot to answer for who has been the cause of my having been ill at all?’ Pitt was much affected by this reproach, and it is said to have influenced him to surrender the question rather than press it to the peril of the King’s health. Indeed, the King had so determinedly expressed himself on the subject that the Duke of Portland had declared that his Majesty had rather suffer martyrdom than submit to this measure.
The interview between the King and the Duke of York was followed by one between the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. Lord Malmesbury says of the latter, that ‘his behaviour was right and proper. How unfortunate that it is not sincere, or rather that he has so effeminate a mind as to counteract all his own good qualities by having no control over his weaknesses!’
The Queen continued in a great state of anxiety touching the King’s health, notwithstanding his complete recovery having been declared. He was at times very nervous and depressed—at others, still more nervous and excited. There was less a fear of mental derangementthan that his faculties might never recover their former tone. He occasionally behaved strangely in public; was too familiar with the members of the cabinet which succeeded that of which Pitt had been at the head; and, again, was too readily and profoundly affected—too soon elated or cast down—by trifles. On Thursday, the 26th of March, 1801, Lord Malmesbury writes: ‘Drawing-room to-day very crowded. Queen looking pale. Princesses as if they had been weeping. They insinuate that the King is too ill for the Queen to appear in public, and to censure her for it. Dukes of York and Cumberland there. The Prince of Waleswasat the drawing-room, but behaved very rudely to the Queen.’ And yet just previously he had made an ostentatious manifestation of his delicacy. Lords Carlisle, Lansdowne, and Fitzwilliam, with Mr. Fox, informed his royal highness that they had formed a coalition, offered him their services, and proposed to hold a conference at Carlton House. The Prince is said to have pleaded, in excuse for declining all they offered, the state of the King’s health; but out of respect to his sire, he said that he should consider it his duty to inform Mr. Addington, the minister, of the nature of their proposals. This he did; and it was perhaps because he regretted the step he had taken that he behaved rudely to his royal mother in her own public drawing-room!
The King’s condition still required care and watchfulness. Thus, on the 25th of May, Dr. Thomas Willis writes to Lord Eldon:—‘The general impression yesterday, from the King’s composure and quietness, was that he was very well. There was an exception to this in the Duke of Clarence, who dined here. “He pitied the family, for he saw something in the King that convinced him he must soon be confined again.”
‘This morning I walked with his Majesty, who was in a perfectly composed and quiet state. He told me,with great seeming satisfaction, that he had had a most charming night, “he could sleep from eleven to half after four,” when, alas! he had but three hours’ sleep in the night, which upon the whole was passed in restlessness—in getting out of bed, opening the shutters, in praying violently, and in making such remarks as betray a consciousness of his own situation, but which are evidently made for the purpose of concealing it from the Queen. He frequently called out, “I am now perfectly well, and my Queen—my Queen has saved me!” While I write these particulars to your lordship I must beg to remind you how much afraid the Queen is lest she should be committed to him; for the King has sworn he will never forgive her if she relates anything that passes in the night.’
The Princess Elizabeth subsequently addressed a letter to Dr. Thomas Willis, in which she states that she has the Queen’s commands to inform him that ‘the subject of the Princess of Wales is still in the King’s mind, to a degree that is distressing, from the unfortunate situation of the family.’ The writer adds: ‘The Queen commands me to say, that if you could see her heart, you would see that she is guided by every principle of justice, and with a most fervent wish that the dear King may do nothing to form a breach between him and the Prince. For she really lives in dread of it; for, from the moment my brother comes into the room till the instant he quits it, there is nothing that is not kind that the King does not do by him. This is so different to his manner whenwell, and his ideas concerning the child (the Princess Charlotte) so extraordinary, that I am not astonished at mamma’s uneasiness. She took courage, and told the King that now my brother was quiet he had better leave him, as he (the Prince) had never forbid the Princess seeing the child when she pleased. To which he answered, “That doesn’tsignify. The Princess shall have her child; and I will speak to Mr. Wyatt about the building of the wing to her present house.” You know full well how speedily every thingis now orderedand done.’
‘The Princess spoke to me on the conversation the King had had with her—expressed her distress; and I told her how right she was in not answering, as I feared the King’s intentions, though most rightly meant, might serve to hurt and injure her in the world.’ For a few days the symptoms ameliorated; then, on the 12th of June, Dr. Thomas Willis wrote to Lord Chancellor Eldon: ‘His Majesty still talks much of his prudence, but shows none. His body, mind, and tongue are all upon the stretch every minute; and the manner in which he is now expending money in various ways, which is so unlike him when well, all evince that he is not so right as he should be.’ The Queen, to use her own words, built her faith upon the Chancellor, and doubted not of his succeeding in everything with his Majesty. ‘He failed in some nevertheless. He urgently requested the King to allow Dr. Robert Willis to remain in attendance on him. The King hated all the Willises, and Dr. Robert not less than any of them. He concludes a note to Lord Eldon on the 21st of June by saying: ‘No person that has ever had a nervous disease can bear to continue the physician employed on the occasion. This holds much more so in the calamitous one which has so long confined the King, but of which he is now completely recovered.’
The health of the Sovereign prevented him from attending the concerts and other entertainments which he was accustomed to honour with his patronage. He was, however, sufficiently recovered to enjoy a sojourn at Weymouth, and, on his return to Kew, to ride over occasionally to visit the Princess of Wales at Blackheath. The daughter of the latter, the Princess Charlotte, wasnow four years of age, and the question of her separation from her mother was a frequent subject of discussion. In the meantime, the little Princess was very often a visitor at St. James’s or Windsor, by command of the Queen, and, of course, unaccompanied by her mother.
On the 29th of October, the King opened Parliament in person. The pleasant announcement was made in the royal speech that the eight years’ war had come to a conclusion. The gratification of the public was, however, somewhat marred by finding that the cost of carrying it on had doubled the national debt, and that the supplies required for the year amounted to forty millions.
The royal family now repaired to Windsor; and for the description of a home scene there we will again have recourse to one who describes what he saw and of which he was a part. Lord Malmesbury was a guest at the castle during the 26th, 27th, and 28th of November. ‘I went there,’ he says, ‘to present to the King and Queen copies of the new edition of my father’s works. I saw them both alone on the evening of the 26th, and was with them that and the next evening at their card party at the Lodge. Each evening the Queen named me of her party, and played at cribbage with me. I was with the King alone near two hours. I had not seen him since the end of October, 1800—of course, not since his last illness. He appeared rather more of an old man, but not older than men of his age commonly appear. He stoops rather more, and was apparently less firm on his legs; but he did not look thinner, nor were there any marks of sickness or decline in his countenance or manner. These last were much as usual—somewhat less hurried and more conversable: that is to say, allowing the person to whom he addressed himself more time to answer and talk than he used to do when discussing on common subjects, on public and grave ones. I at all times, for thirtyyears, have found him very attentive, and full as ready to hear as to give an opinion, though perhaps not always disposed to adopt it and forsake his own. He was gracious even to kindness. He asked how I continued to keep well; and on my saying, amongst other reasons, that I endeavoured tokeep my mind quiet, and dismiss all unpleasant subjects from intruding themselves upon it, the King said, “’Tis a very wise maxim, and one I am determined to follow; but how, at this particular moment, can you avoid it?” And without waiting he went on, saying, “Do you know what I call the peace?An experimental peace, for it is nothing else. I am sure you think so, and perhaps do not give it sogentlea name; but it wasunavoidable. I was abandoned by everybody—allies and all. I have done, I conscientiously believe, for the best, because I could not do otherwise: but had I found more opinions like mine, better might have been done.”’
His Majesty continued, at greater length than it is necessary to follow, to give his opinions upon the men and questions of the day; and this he did with great calmness, discrimination, and foresight. He was not one that believed Jacobinism was dead merely because it was quiet; and he spoke of the policy of Prussia of that day, and of the King who adopted it, as men speak of both in the present day—a mixture of atrocity, treachery, and meanness. Lord Malmesbury says little of the Queen, but enough to give an idea of her manner. ‘The Queen,’ he says, ‘kept me only a quarter of an hour. She said she should see me again in the evening, as I must be tired of standing so long with the King. Spoke kindly of my father and my dear children. Princess Mary was all good-humour and pleasantness: her manners are perfect, and I never saw or conversed with any princess so exactly what she ought to be.’