The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume I Part 8

Mailborne, and one other person. To prevent all suspicion, her Majesty would frequently stand some minutes in her shift talking to her ladies (114) and though labouring with so dangerous a complaint, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the King, that every morning at Richmond she walked several miles with him; and more than once, when she had the gout in her foot, she dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as vented the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper. It was great shrewdness in Sir Robert Walpole, who, before her distemper broke out, discovered her secret. On my mother's death, who was of the Queen's age, her Majesty asked Sir Robert many physical questions; but he remarked that she oftenest reverted to a rupture, which had not been the illness of his wife. When he came home, he said to me, "Now, Horace, I know by possession of what secret Lady Sundon (115)has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen." He was in the right. How Lady Sundon had wormed herself into that mystery was never known. As Sir Robert maintained his influence over the clergy by Gibson, Bishop of London, he often met with troublesome obstructions from Lady Sundon, who espoused, as I have said, the heterodox clergy; and Sir Robert could never shake her credit.

Yet the Queen was constant in her protection of Sir Robert, and the day before she died gave a strong mark of her conviction that he was the firmest supporter the King had. As they two alone were standing by the Queen's bed, she pathetically recommended, not the minister to the sovereign, but the master to the servant.

Sir Robert was alarmed, and feared the recommendation would leave a fatal impression; but a short time after, the King reading with Sir Robert some intercepted letters from Germany, which said that now the Queen was 'gone, Sir Robert would have no protection: "On the contrary," said the King, "you know she recommended me to you." This marked the notice he had taken of the expression; and it was the only notice he ever took of it: nay, his Majesty's grief was so excessive and so sincere, that his kindness to his minister seemed to increase for the Queen's sake.

The Queen's dread of a rival was a feminine weakness; the behaviour of her elder son was a real thorn. He early displayed his aversion to his mother, who perhaps a.s.sumed too much at first; yet it is certain that her good sense, and the interest of her family, would have prevented, if possible, the mutual dislike of the father and son, and their reciprocal contempt. As the Opposition gave into all adulation towards the Prince, his ill-poised head and vanity swallowed all their incense. He even early after his arrival had listened to a high act of disobedience. Money he soon wanted: old Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, (116) e ever proud and ever malignant, was persuaded to offer her favourite Granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer, afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, to the Prince of' Wales, with a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. He accepted the proposal, and the day was fixed for their being secretly married at the d.u.c.h.ess's lodge in the Great park at Windsor. Sir Robert Walpole got intelligence of the project, prevented it, and the secret was buried in silence.

Youth, folly, and indiscretion, the beauty of the young lady, and a large sum of ready money, might have offered something like a plea for so rash a marriage, had it taken place; but what could excuse, what indeed could provoke, the senseless and barbarous insult offered to the King and Queen, by Frederick's taking his wife out of the palace of Hampton Court in the middle of the night, when she was in actual labour, and carrying her, at the imminent risk of the lives of her and the child, to the unaired palace and bed at St. James's? Had he no way of affronting his parents but by venturing to kill his wife and the heir of the crown? A baby that wounds itself to vex its nurse is no more void of reflection. The scene which commenced by unfeeling idiotism closed with paltry hypocrisy. The Queen on the first notice of her son's exploits, set out for St. James's to visit the Princess by seven in the morning. The gracious Prince, so far from attempting an apology, spoke not a word to his mother; but on her retreat gave her his hand, led her into the street to her coach-still dumb!-but a crowd being a.s.sembled at the gate, he kneeled down in the dirt, and humbly kissed her Majesty's hand.

Her indignation must have shrunk into contempt.

After the death of the Queen, Lady Yarmouth (117) came over, who had been the King's mistress at Hanover during his latter journeys-and with the Queen's privity, for he always made her the of his amours; which made Mrs. Selwyn once tell him, he should be the last man with whom she would have an intrigue, for she knew he would tell the Queen. In his letters to the latter from Hanover, he said, "You must love the Walmoden, for she loves me."

She was created a countess, and had much weight with him; but never employed her credit but to a.s.sist his ministers, or to convert some honours and favours to her own advantage. She had two sons, who both bore her husband's name; but the younger, though never acknowledged, was supposed the King's, and consequently did not miss additional homage from the courtiers.

That incense being one of the recommendations to the countenance of Lady Yarmouth, drew Lord Chesterfield into a ridiculous distress. On his being made secretary of state, be found a fair young lad in the antechamber at St. James's, -who seeming much at home, the earl, concluding it was the mistress's son, was profuse of attentions to the boy, and more prodigal still of his prodigious regard for his mamma. The shrewd boy received all his lordship's vows with indulgence, and without betraying himself: at last he said, "I suppose your lordship takes me for Master Louis; but I am only Sir William Russel, one of the pages."

The King's last years pa.s.sed as regularly as clockwork. At nine at night he had cards in the apartment of his daughters, the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, with Lady Yarmouth, two or three of the late Queen's ladies, and as many of the most favoured officers of his own household. Every Sat.u.r.day in summer he carried that uniform party, but without his daughters, to dine at Richmond: they went in coaches and six in the middle of the day , with the heavy horse-guards kicking up the dust before them-dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade; and his Majesty fancied himself the most gallant and lively prince in Europe.

His last year was glorious and triumphant beyond example; and his death was most felicitous to himself, being without a Pang, without tasting a reverse, and when his sight and hearing were so nearly extinguished that any prolongation could but have swelled to calamities. (118)

(105) She is thus described in a ballad, made upon the quarrel between George the First and the Prince of Wales, at the christening recorded at p. 83 when the Prince and all his household were ordered to quit St. James's:-

"But b.e.l.l.e.n.den we needs must praise, Who, as down the stairs she jumps, Sings over the hills and far away, Despising doleful dumps."-E.

(106) Colonel John Campbell succeeded to the dukedom in 1761: Mrs. Campbell died in 1736. She was the mother of the fifth Duke of Argyle and three other sons, and of Lady Caroline, who married, first, the Earl of Aylesbury, and, secondly, Walpole's bosom friend, Marshal Conway.-E.

(107) "The letter which Walpole alludes to," says Mr. Croker, "is in existence. It is not a letter from Mr. Howard to his lady, but from the Archbishop to the Princess; and although his grace urges a compliance with Mr. Howard's demand of the restoration of his wife, he treats it not as a matter between them, but as an attack on the Princess herself, whom the Archbishop considers as the direct protectress of Mrs. Howard, and the immediate cause of her resistance. So that in this letter at least there is no ground for imputing to Mrs. Howard any rivalry with the Princess, or to the Princess any malicious jealousy of Mrs. Howard." Vol.

i. p. xiv.-E.

(108) Mr. Croker a.s.serts, that "neither in Mrs. Howard's correspondence with the King, nor in the notes of her conversation with the Queen, nor in any of her most confidential papers, has he found a single trace of the feeling which Walpole so confidently imputes." Upon this a.s.sertion, Sir Walter Scott, in a review of the Suffolk Correspondence, pleasantly remarks,-"We regret that the editor's researches have not enabled him to state, whether it is true that the restive husband sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his lady for a pension of twelve hundred a-year. For our own parts, without believing all Walpole's details, we substantially agree in his opinion, that the King's friendship was by no means Platonic or refined; but that the Queen and Mrs. Howard, by mutual forbearance, good sense, and decency, contrived to diminish the scandal: after all, the question has no great interest for the present generation, since scandal is only valued when fresh, and the public have generally enough of that poignant fare, without ripping up the frailties of their grandmothers." Sir Walter sums up his notice of the inaccuracies occurring in these Reminiscences, with the following just and considerate reflection: "When it is recollected that the n.o.ble owner of Strawberry Hill was speaking of very remote events, which he reported on hearsay, and that hearsay of old standing, such errors are scarcely to be wondered at, particularly when they are found to correspond with the partialities and prejudices of the narrator. These, strengthening as we grow older, gradually pervert or at least alter, the accuracy of our recollections, until they a.s.similate them to our feelings, while,

"As beams of warm imagination play, The memory's faint traces melt away.

See Prose Works, vol. xix. p. 201.-E.

(109) Pope alludes to this personal defect in his lines "On a certain Lady at court:"

"I know a thing that's most uncommon; (Envy be silent, and attend!) I know a reasonable woman, handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warp'd by pa.s.sion, awed by rumour; Not grave through pride, or gay through folly-- An equal mixture of good humour And sensible, soft melancholy.

'Has she no faults then,' (Envy says,) 'Sir?'

'Yes, she has one, I must aver; When all the world conspires to praise her-- The woman's deaf, and does not hear.'"-E.

(110) The same thing has happened to me by books. A pa.s.sage lately read has recalled some other formerly perused; and both together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which neither separately would have expounded.

(111) Lady Suffolk died in July, 1767.-E.

(112) Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden, the surgeon, then in favour at court, persuaded her that he had hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a condemned convict then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the man could be pardoned, he would try it; and, if he succeeded, would practise the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man's pardon, who was cousin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended discovery to save his relation-and no more was heard of the experiment. The man saved his ear too-but Cheselden was disgraced at court.

(113) Lady Suffolk formally retired from court in 1734, and in the following year married the Honourable George Berkeley, youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley. He was Master of St. Catherine's, in the Tower, and had served in two parliaments as member for Dover. He died in 1746.-E.

(114) While the Queen dressed, prayers used to be read in the outward room, where hung a naked Venus. Mrs. Selwyn, bedchamber-woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the chaplain, Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, begin the service. He said archly, "And a very proper altar-piece is here, Madam!" Queen Anne had the same custom; and once ordering the door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The Queen sent to ask why he did not proceed. He replied, "he would not whistle the word of G.o.d through the keyhole."

(115) Mrs. Clayton, wife of Robert Clayton, Esq. of the Treasury, bedchamber-woman to the Queen. This lady, who had the art to procure her husband to be created Lord Sundon, possessed over her royal mistress an influence of which even Sir Robert Walpole was jealous.-E.

(116) That woman, who had risen to greatness and independent wealth by the weakness of another Queen, forgot, like Duc d'Epernon, her own unmerited exultation, and affected to brave successive courts, though sprung from the dregs of one. When the Prince of Orange came over to marry the Princess Royal, Anne, a boarded gallery with a penthouse roof was erected for the procession from the windows of the great drawing-room at St.

James's cross the garden to the Lutheran chapel in the friary.

The Prince being indisposed, and going to Bath, the marriage was deferred for some weeks, and the boarded gallery remained, darkening the windows of Marlborough House. The d.u.c.h.ess cried, "I wonder when my neighbour George will take away his orange-chest!"--which it did resemble. She did not want that sort of wit,* which ill-temper, long knowledge of the world, and insolence can sharpen-and envying the favour which she no longer possessed, Sir R. Walpole was often the object of her satire.

Yet her great friend, Lord G.o.dolphin, the treasurer, had enjoined her to preserve very different sentiments. The d.u.c.h.ess and my father and mother were standing by the Earl's bed at St. Albans as he was dying. Taking Sir Robert by the hand, Lord G.o.dolphin turned to the d.u.c.h.ess, and said, "Madam, should 'you ever desert this young man, and there should be a possibility of returning from the grave, I shall certainly appear to you." Her grace did not believe in spirits.

* Baron Gleicken, minister from Denmark to France, being at Paris soon after the King his master had been there, and a French lady being so ill-bred as to begin censuring the King to him, saying, "Ah! Monsieur, c'est une t'ete!"-"Couronn'ee," replied he instantly, stopping her by so gentle a hint.

(117) Amelia Sophia, wife of the Baron de Walmoden, Created Countess of Yarmouth in 1739.

(118) For an interesting account of the death of George the Second, on the 24th of October, 1760, and also of his funeral in Westminster Abbey, see Walpole's letters to Mr. Montagu on the 25th of that month, and of the 13th of November.-E.

CHAPTER VIII.

George the Second's Daughters-Anne, Princess of Orange-Princess Amelia-Princess Caroline-Lord Hervey-Duke of c.u.mberland.

I am tempted to drain my memory of all its rubbish, and will set down a few more of my recollections, but with less method than I have used in the foregoing pages.

I have said little or nothing of the King's two unmarried daughters. Though they lived in the palace with him, he never admitted them to any share in his politics; and if any of the ministers paid them the compliment of seeming attachment, it was more for the air than for the reality. The Princess Royal, Anne, married in Holland, was of a most imperious and ambitious nature; and on her mother's death, hoping to succeed to her credit, came to Holland on pretence of ill health; but the King, aware of her plan, Was so offended that he sent her to Bath as soon as she arrived, and as peremptorily back to Holland-I think, without suffering her to pa.s.s two nights in London.

Princess Amelia, as well disposed to meddle, was confined to receiving court from the Duke of Newcastle, who affected to be in love with her; and from the Duke of Grafton, in whose connexion with her there was more reality.

Princess Caroline, one of the most excellent of women, was devoted to the Queen, who, as well as the King, had such confidence in her veracity, that on any disagreement among their children, they said, "Stay, send for Caroline, and then we shall know the truth."

The memorable Lord Hervey had dedicated himself to the Queen, and certainly towards her death had gained great ascendance with her.

She had made him privy-seal; and as he took care to keep as well with Sir Robert Walpole, no man stood in a more prosperous light.

But Lord Hervey, who handled all the weapons of a court, (119) had also made a deep impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline; and as there was a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the court was often on the point of being disturbed by the enmity of the favourites of the two Princesses. The death of the Queen deeply affected her daughter Caroline; and the change of the ministry four years after, dislodged Lord Hervey whom for the Queen's sake the King would have saved, and who very ungratefully satirized the King in a ballad, as if he had sacrificed him voluntarily.

Disappointment, rage, and a distempered const.i.tution carried Lord Hervey off, and overwhelmed his Princess - she never appeared in public after the Queen's death; and, being dreadfully afflicted with the rheumatism, never stirred out of her apartment, and rejoiced at her own dissolution some years before her father.

Her sister Amelia leagued herself with the Bedford faction during the latter part of her father's life. When he died, she established herself respectably; but enjoying no favour with her nephew, and hating the Princess-dowager, she made a plea of her deafness, and soon totally abstained from St. James's.

The Duke of c.u.mberland, never, or very rarely, interfered in politics. Power he would have liked, but never seemed to court it. His pa.s.sion would have been to command the army, and he would, I doubt, have been too ready to aggrandize the crown by it: but successive disgusts weaned his mind from all pursuits, and the grandeur of his sense, (120) and philosophy made him indifferent to a world that had disappointed all his views. The unpopularity which the Scotch and Jacobites spread against him for his merit in suppressing the rebellion, his brother's jealousy, and the contempt he himself felt for the Prince, his own ill success in his battles abroad, and his father's treacherous sacrifice of him on the convention of Closterseven, the dereliction of his two political friends, Lord Holland and Lord Sandwich, and the rebuffing spite of the Princess-dowager; all those mortifications centring on a const.i.tution evidently tending to dissolution, made him totally neglect himself, and ready to shake off being, as an enc.u.mbrance not worth the attention of a superior understanding.

>From the time the Duke first appeared on the stage of the public, all his father's ministers had been blind to his Royal Highness's capacity, or were afraid of it. Lord Granville, too giddy himself to sound a young Prince, had treated him arrogantly when the King and the Earl had projected a match for him with the Princess of Denmark. The Duke, accustomed by the Queen and his governor, Mr. Poyntz, to venerate the wisdom of Sir Robert Walpole, then on his death-bed, sent Mr. Poyntz, the day but one before Sir Robert expired, to consult him how to avoid the match.

Sir Robert advised his Royal Highness to stipulate for an ample settlement. The Duke took the sage counsel, and heard no more of his intended bride.

The low ambition of Lord Hardwicke, the childish pa.s.sion for power of the Duke of Newcastle, and the peevish jealousy of Mr.

Pelham, combined on the death of the Prince of Wales, to exclude the Duke of c.u.mberland from the regency (in case of minority,) and to make them flatter themselves that they should gain the favour of the Princess-dowager by cheating her with the semblance of power. The Duke resented the slight, but scorned to make any claim. The Princess never forgave the insidious homage; and, in concurrence with Lord Bute, totally estranged the affection of the young King from his uncle, nor allowed him a shadow of influence.

(119) He had broken with Frederick, Prince of Wales, on having shared the favours of his mistress, Miss Vane, one of the Queen's maids of honour. When she fell in labour at St. James's, and was delivered of a son, which she ascribed to the Prince, Lord Hervey and Lord Harrington each told Sir Robert Walpole that he believed himself father of the child.

(120) the Duke, in his very childhood, gave a mark of his sense and firmness. He had displeased the Queen, an(f she sent him up to his chamber. When he appeared again, he was sullen.

"William," said the Queen, "what have you been doing?"-- "Reading."--"Reading what?"--"The Bible."--"And what did you read there?"--"About Jesus and Mary.=--"And what about them?"--"Why, that Jesus said to Mary, Woman! what hast thou to do with me?"