Farmer George Volume I Part 8

as, for an instant, she thought he meant her, but her agitation was dissipated when he continued, "I mean your friend, Lady Sarah Lennox.

Tell her so, and let me have her answer the next Drawing-room day."[121]

Fox, however, makes no allusion to this, and merely records that the King crossed over to Lady Sarah, and told her to ask her friend what he had been saying.

[121] _Grenville Papers._

A week later the King asked Lady Sarah if she had heard what he had said, and upon her replying in the affirmative, put the question, "Do you approve?" to which he received as answer only a cross look, whereupon, in high dudgeon, he left the room. This brusque repulse is explained by the fact that Lady Sarah was piqued by her lover, Lord Newbattle,[122] and sought solace by avenging his offence upon her royal suitor. Fox remarked the coolness of the King, and commented, "He has undoubtedly heard of Lord Newbattle and more than is true;" but soon the sovereign's love conquered his dignity, and perhaps a reconciliation was hastened by the news of an accident in the hunting field to Lady Sarah.

Lord Newbattle when told she had fractured a leg had said, "It will do no great harm, for her legs were ugly enough before," and this statement, repeated to Lady Sarah, cured her of her attachment to the speaker, and made her more ready, on her recovery, to accede to the King's request to reconsider his proposal.

[122] John William, Lord Newbattle, afterwards fifth Marquis of Lothian.

"Lord Newbattle (Lord Ancram's son), a vain, insignificant puppy, lively, and not ugly, made love to all the girls, but was much in love with Lady Caroline Russell, the Duke of Bedford's daughter. Lady Sarah tried to get him away from her, and was so pleased with her success that she grew too much pleased with his Lordship. It was really a commerce of vanity, not of love, on each side."--_Henry Fox_, 1761.

But this marriage was not to be. "They talk very strongly of a white Princess of Brunswick about fifteen, to be our new Queen, and so strongly that one can hardly help believing it, though with no good and particular authority," Fox wrote on April 7, 1761; though a week later he recorded: "On Sunday I heard from good authority that the report of his Majesty's intended marriage with a Princess of Brunswick was entirely without foundation, and that he was totally free and unengaged." That Fox was incredulous as to the King's marriage with a princess was not unnatural, considering the monarch's conduct. "At the court ball on his Majesty's birthday, June 4, 1761, Lady Sarah's place was, of course, at the head of the dancers' bench, nearest his seat: the royal chair, heavy as it was, was moved nearer and nearer to the left, and he edged further and further the same way, and the conversation went on till all dancing was over and everybody sat in suspense; and it approached one in the morning ere he recollected himself and rose to dismiss the a.s.sembly."[123] On June 18 the King said to Lady Sarah: "For G.o.d's sake remember what I said to Lady Susan before you went to the country, and believe that I have the strongest attachment." Yet within a fortnight of explicit declaration, which was well received by the girl, a Council was summoned for July 8, though even on the 6th Fox could obtain no hint from Lord Bute as to the business to be transacted. At the meeting of the Council the King announced his forthcoming marriage with Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz!

[123] Percy Fitzgerald: _The Good Queen Charlotte_.

Lady Susan Fox Strangways was more aggrieved than the person chiefly concerned, for, as she remarked humorously, "I almost thought myself Prime Minister"; but Fox was furious, as much at the deception as at the disappointment. "My mother (Lady Sarah) would probably have been vexed,"

said Henry Napier, "but her favourite squirrel happened to die at the same time, and his loss was more felt than that of a crown."[124] Lady Sarah was not in love with the King, and the shock fell not on her heart but on her vanity. "I did not cry, I a.s.sure you, which I believe you will, as I know you were set upon it that I was," she wrote on July 7, 1761, to Lady Susan. "The thing I am most angry at is looking so like a fool, as I shall for having gone so often for nothing, but I don't much care; if he was to change his mind again (which can't be though), and not give me a _very_ good reason for his conduct, I would not have him, for if he is so weak as to be governed by everybody, I shall have but a bad time of it." She certainly had reason to complain of the King's conduct, and, after referring to his "mighty kind speeches and looks,"

this she did to the same correspondent. "Even last Thursday, the day after the orders [for the Council] were come out," she wrote, "the hypocrite had the face to come up and speak to me with all the good humour in the world, and seemed to want to speak to me but was afraid.... He must have sent to this woman [Princess Charlotte] before you went out of town, then what business had he to begin again? In short, his behaviour is that of a man who has neither sense, good nature, nor honesty."[125]

[124] Mr. Napier's _Memoir_ in _The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox_.

[125] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._

The King's conduct at this juncture has never been satisfactorily explained. "It is well known," Wraxall wrote, "that before his marriage the King distinguished by his partiality Lady Sarah Lennox, then one of the most beautiful young women of high rank in the kingdom. Edward IV, or Henry VIII, in his situation, would have married and placed her on the throne. Charles II, more licentious, would have endeavoured to seduce her. But the King, though he admired her, neither desired to make her his wife nor his mistress, subdued his pa.s.sion by the strength of his reason, his principles, and his sense of public duty."[126]

[126] _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times._

This statement is certainly inaccurate, at least in so far as the remark that the King did not desire to make Lady Sarah his wife, for all the evidence--which was not available in Wraxall's day--tends to prove that for a while this was his wish. There is more truth in the supposition that his sense of public duty intervened in favour of a lady of royal birth, though this furnishes no reason for keeping his intention secret from Lady Sarah. Doubtless he was persuaded by his mother and Lord Bute that it was his duty to espouse a princess, and, once convinced of this, he sighed and sighed, and rode away.

Fox knew he was beaten, but he showed a philosophic calm. "Well, Sal,"

he said to his niece, "you are the first virgin in England, and you shall take your place in spite of them all as chief bridesmaid, and the King shall behold your pretty face and repent." But the twain met again so early as July 16 when Lady Sarah went to Court. "I went this morning for the first time," she wrote to her friend. "He looked frightened when he saw me, but notwithstanding came up with what countenance I don't know for I was not so gracious as ever to look at him: when he spoke our conversation was short. Here it is. 'I see riding is begun again, it's glorious weather for it now.' Answer. 'Yes, it is very fine,'--and add to that a very cross and angry look of my side and his turning away immediately, and you know the whole."[127]

[127] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._

Lady Sarah, as her uncle had promised, was duly appointed chief bridesmaid, and perhaps she felt herself avenged, for, according to Princess Amelia, "Upon my word my nephew has most wonderful a.s.surance; during the ceremony he never took his eyes from Lady Sarah, or cast them once upon his bride."[128] It was remarked that the King moved uneasily when the Archbishop of Canterbury read the lines of the marriage service: "And as Thou didst send Thy blessing upon Abraham and Sarah to their great comfort, so vouchsafe to send Thy blessing upon these Thy servants"; but it has not been recorded how the King felt when, at the Drawing-room held on the next day, the old Earl of Westmoreland mistook Lady Sarah for the Queen and was only prevented just in time from kneeling and kissing her hand.[129]

[128] Lord Carlisle: _Reminiscences_.

[129] Walpole: _Memoirs of George III_.

Lord Westmoreland was an adherent of the Stuarts, and Selwyn said that "the lady in waiting must have told him Lady Sarah was the Pretender."

That the King never forgot Lady Sarah Lennox is certain. When at the theatre he saw Mrs. Pope, who much resembled Lady Sarah, he fell into a reverie, and, forgetful of the Queen and other persons in his box, mused: "She is like Lady Sarah still"; while Princess Elizabeth told Lady Louisa Stuart, "Do you know papa says she (Princess Mary) will be like Lady Sarah Bunbury, who was the prettiest woman he ever saw in his life." Lady Sarah was well content with her lot, and, as is well known, made in 1762 "a match of her own choice" with the sporting baronet, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, and, when this union was dissolved in 1781, married the Hon. George Napier,[130] and became the mother of eight children, two of whom, William and Charles, attained distinction as, respectively, the historian of the Peninsular War and the conqueror of Scinde.[131] But we have no concern here with the later years of Lady Sarah, save to remark that she never regretted the loss of the brilliant position to which she so nearly attained. "I declare that I have for years reverenced the Queen's name, and admired the judgment of Providence in placing so exalted a character in a station where my miserable one would have been a disgrace!" she wrote in 1789 to Lady Susan O'Brien. "And now I still affirm the judgment of Providence is always right, but I see she was chosen to punish the poor King's faults by her ambitions and conduct instead of _me_ by my faults, and I _still_ rejoice I was never Queen, and so I shall to my life's end; for, at the various events in it, I have regularly catechised myself upon that very point, and I always preferred my own situation, sometimes happy, sometimes miserable, to what it would have been had that event ever taken place." One other quotation from a letter from Lady Sarah to the same correspondent may perhaps be allowed. "I am one who will keep the King's marriage-day with unfeigned joy and grat.i.tude to Heaven that I am not in her Majesty's place! It was the happiest day for me, in as much [as] I like to attend my dear sick husband better than a King. I like my sons better than I like the royal sons, thinking them better animals, and more likely to give me comfort in my old age; and I like better to be a subject, than subject to the terrors of royalty in these days of trouble. It's pleasant to have lived to be satisfied of the great advantages of a lot which in those days I might have deemed unlucky.

Ideas of fifteen and sixty one cannot well a.s.similate; but mine began at fourteen, for if you remember I was not near fifteen when my poor head began to be turned by adulation, in consequence of my supposed favour. In the year 1759, on the late Princess of Wales's birthday, November 30, I ought to have been in my nursery, and I shall ever think it was unfair to bring me into the world while a child. _Au reste_, I am delighted to hear the King is so well, for I am excessively partial to him. I always consider him as an old friend that has been in the wrong; but does one love one's friend less for being in the wrong even towards oneself? I don't, and I would not value the friendship of those who measure friendship by my deservings. G.o.d help me if all my friends thought thus."[132]

[130] Second son of Francis, fifth Baron Napier.

[131] It has been said that Sir Charles announced the capture of Scinde in the briefest despatch on record--"Peccavi." Only such a brilliant exploit can be accepted as excuse for such an execrable joke.

[132] _Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox._

CHAPTER VII

THE ROYAL MARRIAGE

The rumour that the King would espouse a Princess of Brunswick had arisen from a proposal to that effect made by the Princess Dowager, but for many reasons this suggestion was not acted upon. Subsequently a princess of the house of Hesse was thought of, but her levity of conduct was such that, when it came to the point, it was found that "n.o.body would take it upon them to recommend her." Eventually Lord Bute instructed a Colonel Graeme or Graham to visit the German courts to find a princess who should be "perfect in her form, of pure blood and healthy const.i.tution, possessed of elegant accomplishments, particularly music, to which the King was much attached, and of a mild and obliging disposition." The appointment of Graeme for this responsible errand caused much surprise, for the selected envoy had been notorious as a Jacobite; which provoked Hume to the remark that Graeme had exchanged the dangerous office of making a king for the more lucrative one of making a king's marriage. However, the envoy was conscientious, and "in the character of a private gentleman, played lotto with the ladies of one court, and drank the aperient waters with the antiquated dames of another, merely to hear the t.i.ttle-tattle of the day, respecting the positive or negative virtues, the absence or excellence of personal charms, which at that time distinguished the marriageable princesses of the numerous royal, ducal, or princely families of Protestant Germany."[133] Graeme carried out his task to the best of his ability.

He had been commanded to seek a peerless Dulcinda: he found Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,[134] who subsequently rewarded him for his share in her promotion by the bestowal of one of the richest places in the gift of the Queen of England, the Mastership of St.

Catherine's Hospital.

[133] Huish: _The Public and Private Life of George III_.

[134] Princess Charlotte Sophia, younger daughter of Charles Louis, Duke of Miroir, the second son of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Princess was born on May 16, 1744; her father died in 1751.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a drawing by T. McArdell_

QUEEN CHARLOTTE]

There is, however, another account of the selection of Princess Charlotte as consort of George III. The King of Prussia's army had devastated the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the young Princess protested in a letter to the monarch....

"May it please your Majesty, I am at a loss whether I should congratulate or condole with you on your late victory over Marshall Daun, November 3, 1760 since the same success which has covered you with laurels, has overspread the country of Mecklenburg with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems unbecoming my s.e.x, in this age of vicious refinement, to feel for one's country, to lament the horrors of war, or wish for the return of peace. I know you may think it more properly my province to study the arts of pleasing, or to inspect subjects of a more domestic nature; but, however unbecoming it may be in me, I cannot resist the desire of interceding for this unhappy people. It was but a very few years ago that this territory wore the most pleasing appearance; the country was cultivated, the peasants looked cheerful, and the towns abounded with riches and festivity. What an alteration at present from such a charming scene! I am not expert at description, nor can my fancy add any horrors to the picture; but surely even conquerors would weep at the hideous prospects now before me. The whole country, my dear country, lies one frightful waste, presenting only objects to excite terror, pity, and despair. The business of the husbandman and shepherd are discontinued. The husbandman and the shepherd are become soldiers themselves, and help to ravage the soil they formerly cultivated. The towns are inhabited only by old men, old women, and children; perhaps here and there a warrior, by wounds or loss of limbs, rendered unfit for service, left at his door; his little children hang round him, ask an history of every wound, and grow themselves soldiers, before they find strength for the field. But this were nothing, did we not feel the alternate insolence of either army as it happens to advance or retreat, in pursuing the operations of the campaign. It is impossible to express the confusion, even those who call themselves our friends create; even those from whom we might expect redress oppress with new calamities. From your justice, therefore, it is we hope relief. To you even women and children may complain, whose humanity stoops to the meanest pet.i.tion, and whose power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice."

A copy of this doc.u.ment, so the story goes, found its way, either by accident or design, to George III, who, not pausing to consider that it was unlikely to have been composed by a sixteen-year-old princess, exclaimed to Lord Hertford: "This is the lady whom I shall select for my consort--here are lasting beauties--the man who has any mind may feast and not be satisfied. If the disposition of the Princess but equals her refined sense, I shall be the happiest man, as I hope, with my people's concurrence, to be the greatest monarch in Europe." If in a wife George desired such qualities as a knowledge of the elements of Lutheran divinity, natural history, and mineralogy, with some French, a trifle of Italian, and a style of drawing that even a courtier could describe only as "above that of the ordinary amateur," they were, for the asking, to be had in this Princess. Apparently these accomplishments sufficed, for _pourparlers_ were exchanged, and the King's intention to marry Princess Charlotte was on July 8, 1761, notified by himself to the Privy Council.

"Having nothing so much at heart as to procure the welfare and happiness of my people, and to render the same stable and permanent to posterity,"

he said, "I have, ever since my accession to the throne, turned my thoughts towards the choice of a Princess for my consort; and I now, with great satisfaction acquaint you, that after the fullest information and maturest deliberation, I am come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a princess distinguished by every eminent virtue and amiable endowment, whose ill.u.s.trious line has constantly shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion, and a particular attachment to my family. I have judged proper to communicate to you these my intentions, in order that you may be fully apprised of a matter so highly important to me and to my kingdom, and which I persuade myself will be most acceptable to all my loving subjects."

To this meeting of the Privy Council was summoned Lord Harcourt, who, after the King's speech, was to his great surprise informed by Lord Bute that he had been appointed Master of the Horse, and was to go to Strelitz to make formal application for the hand of the Princess. "After what happened to me some years ago, it was beneath me to become a solicitor for favours," he said. "This honour I expected about as much as I did the bishopric of London, then vacant." He accepted the mission, and on August 8 set sail for Strelitz--"if he can find it," Walpole said satirically, in allusion to the size of the Duchy, the dimensions of which were one hundred and twenty miles long by thirty miles broad.

"They say the little Princess who had written the fine letter about the horrors of war--a beautiful letter without a single blot, for which she was to be rewarded, like the heroine of the old spelling book story--was at play one day with some of her young companions in the gardens of Strelitz, and that the young lady's conversation was, strange to say, about husbands," Thackeray has written. "'Who will take such a poor little princess as me?' Charlotte said to her friend, Ida von Bulow, and at that very moment the postman's horn sounded, and Ida said, 'Princess!

there is the sweetheart.' As she said, so it actually turned out. The postman brought letters from the splendid young King of all England, who said, 'Princess! because you have written such a beautiful letter, which does credit to your head and heart, come and be Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the true wife of your most obedient servant, George.' So she jumped for joy; and went upstairs and packed all her little trunks; and set off straightway for her kingdom in a beautiful yacht, with a harpsichord on board for her to play upon, and around her a beautiful fleet, all covered with flags and streamers."[135]

[135] Thackeray: _The Four Georges_.

This playful account is not, perhaps, historically correct, but, if the story is to be believed, it conveys the true spirit of the offer and its acceptance. The Princess was just seventeen years of age, and had led the quietest life imaginable, studying under Madame de Grabow, the "German Sappho," cultivating medicinal herbs and fruit for the poor, and employing her leisure with embroidery and needlework. Six days a week she had worn the simplest attire; on the seventh only, when she attended church in state, had been granted the privilege of full dress and the delight of a drive in a coach and six. Indeed, she had never dined at the ducal table until, on the arrival of Lord Harcourt, her brother Adolphus Frederick, the reigning Duke, told her she was expected to be present. "Mind what you say," he added, and "don't behave like a child"; and of course the warning produced a fit of shyness, the discomfort of which more than counterbalanced the pleasure of her first dinner party.

Later in the evening, or (some authorities say) the next morning, the Duke, again cautioning her, "_Allons, ne faites pas l'enfant, tu vas etre reine d'Angleterre_," led her into a drawing-room, where, after Lord Harcourt had presented some jewels from his master, the marriage ceremony was performed, with Drummond, the resident English minister at the ducal court, as the King's proxy.[136]

[136] This alliance interfered with another marriage. The Duke of Roxburgh had fallen in love with Princess Christina, Charlotte's elder sister, and would probably have married her, but this plan perforce fell through when George III selected Princess Charlotte for his consort, for it was one of the conditions of the contract that no member of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz family should wed an English subject. Neither Princess Christina nor her suitor ever married.

The treaty of marriage was signed on August 15, 1761, and although, suddenly nervous at the prospective plunge into the unknown world, the new Queen would willingly have postponed her departure for a few days longer, yet, as the coronation of her husband and herself was already fixed for September 22, she was compelled to leave Strelitz two days after the ceremony. At Stade she was met by the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton and the d.u.c.h.ess of Ancaster, who had come to escort the bride to her adopted country. "I hope friendship may take the place of ceremony in our relations," she greeted them, having apparently at once caught the tone of regal graciousness; and she completed the conquest of the n.o.ble dames when, after gazing at them, she said wonderingly and a little fearful: "Are all English women as beautiful as you?" Queen Charlotte was very humble in those early days, and her childish delight in the salutes with which cannons and bells greeted her was tempered with meek astonishment: "Am I worthy of all these honours?"

The royal party embarked at Cuxhaven on August 22, but did not reach Harwich until Sunday, September 6. The delay, which was occasioned by exceptionally rough weather, caused some anxiety as to the safety of the Queen, especially in London, where the news of her arrival was not known until Monday. "Last night at ten o'clock it was neither certain where she landed, nor when she would be in town," Horace Walpole wrote on Tuesday, September 8, "I forgive history for knowing nothing when so public an event as the arrival of a new queen is a mystery even at this very moment at St. James's. The messenger that brought the letter yesterday morning said she _arrived_ at half-an-hour after four at Harwich; this was immediately translated into _landing_, and notified in these words to the ministers. Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and, that she was only in Harwich Road; and they recollected that half-an-hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well, the bridesmaids whipt on their virginity; the New Road and the Parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty, was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart.

Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and no queen."

The Queen had remained on board until three o'clock on Monday afternoon, so as to allow time for the preparations incidental to her reception.

She then drove to Colchester, which was reached at five o'clock, and from there went on to Witham, where she stayed overnight at Lord Abercorn's.[137] Leaving Witham early in the morning, the Queen arrived at noon at Romford, where she was met by the King's coaches and servants. She entered one of the royal carriages, dressed in "a fly-cap with rich lace lappets, a stomacher ornamented with diamonds, and a gold brocade suit of clothes with a white ground." Her companions desired her to curl her _toupee_ but this she declined to do on the ground that it looked as well as that of any of the ladies sent to fetch her, adding that if the King wished her to wear a periwig she would do so, but otherwise would remain as she was.