Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, volume 1 (of 2)

CHAPTER I.
THE COMING OF THE BRIDE.

The eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was yet young when his grandfather began to consider the question of his marriage; and, it is said, had designed to form a union between him and a princess of the royal family of Prussia. The design, if ever formed, entirely failed; and while those most anxious for the Protestant succession were occupied in naming princesses worthy to espouse an heir to a throne, that heir himself is said to have fixed his young affections on an English lady, whose virtues and beauty might have made her eligible had not the accident of her not being a foreigner barred her way to the throne. This lady was Lady Sarah Lennox; and a vast amount of gossip was expended upon her and the young prince by those busy persons whose chief occupation consists in arranging the affairs of others. It is impossible to say how far this young couple were engaged; but the fact, as surmised, rendered the friends of the prince, now George III., more anxious than ever to see him provided with a fair partner on the throne.

George III. had first been ‘smitten’ by seeing Lady Sarah Lennox making hay in a field close to the high road in Kensington. She was charming in feature, figure, and expression; but her great beauty, according to Henry Fox, was ‘a peculiarity of countenance that made her at the same time different from, and prettier than, any other girl I ever saw.’ At a private court ball, the young King said to Lady Susan Strangways: ‘There will be no coronation until there is a Queen, and I think your friend is the fittest person for it; tell her so from me.’ Subsequently, the enamoured monarch had an opportunity of asking Lady Sarah if she had received the message confided to Lady Susan. On the young lady replying in the affirmative, and on her being asked what she thought of it, her answer was: ‘Nothing, sir!’ Her friends, however, thought a good deal of it. As Lady Sarah was once entering the presence chamber, Lady Barrington gently pulled the skirt of her dress, and said: ‘Let me go in before you; for you will never have another opportunity of seeing my beautiful back.’ Lady Barrington was famed for the beauty of her shoulders. Lady Sarah, too, had thought more about the King’s message than she had confessed to the King himself.

When the news reached her that the young Sovereign was about to marry a ‘Princess of Mecklenburgh,’ she wrote to Lady Susan: ‘Does not your choler rise at hearing this. I shall take care to show that I am not mortified to anybody; but if it is true that one can vex anybody with a cold, reserved manner, he shall have it, I promise him.’ Anon, the writer thinks she only liked him a little, and the ‘disappointment affected her only for an hour or two.’ Ultimately, she remarks: ‘If he were to change his mind again (which can’t be, tho’), and not give a very, very good reason for his conduct, I would not have him. We are to act a play and have a little ball, to show that we are not so melancholy quite!’ And thus the disappointment was ostensibly got over.

Walpole has described the lady who first raised a tender feeling in the breast of George in very graphic terms: ‘There was a play at Holland House, acted by children; not all children, for Lady Sarah Lennox’ (subsequently Lady Sarah Napier) ‘and Lady Susan Strangways played the women. It was ‘Jane Shore.’ Charles Fox was Hastings. The two girls were delightful, and acted with so much nature that they appeared the very things they represented. Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive; and her very awkwardness gave an air of truth to the sham of the part, and the antiquity of the time, kept up by her dress, which was taken out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour. I was more struck with the last scene between the two women than ever I was when I have seen it on the stage. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen of Correggio was half so lovely and expressive.’

But there is a pretty romance extant, based, as even romances may be, upon some foundation of reality; and, according to the narrators thereof, it is said that the King, when yet only Prince of Wales, had been attracted by the charms of a young Quakeress, named Lightfoot (of the vicinity of St. James’s Market), long before he had felt subdued by the more brilliant beauty of Lady Sarah Lennox. The romance has been recounted circumstantially enough by its authors and editors; and, if these are to be trusted, the young prince was so enamoured that, finding his peace of mind and happiness depended on his being united to the gentle Hannah, he made a confidant of his brother, Edward, Duke of York, and another person, who has never had the honour of being named, and in their presence a marriage was contracted privately at Curzon Street Chapel, Mayfair, in the year 1759!

A few years previous to this time, Mayfair had been the favourite locality for the celebration of hurried marriages, particularly at ‘Keith’s Chapel,’ which was within ten yards of ‘Curzon Chapel.’ The Reverend Alexander Keith kept open altar during the usual office hours from ten till four, and married parties for the small fee of a guinea, license included. Parties requiring to be united at other hours paid extra. The Reverend Alexander so outraged the law that he was publicly excommunicated in 1742; for which he as publicly excommunicated the excommunicators in return. Seven years before George is said to have married Hannah Lightfoot at Curzon Chapel, James, the fourth Duke of Hamilton, was married at ‘Keith’s’ to the youngest of the beautiful Misses Gunning—‘with a ring of the bed-curtain,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘and at half an hour after twelve at night.’

The rest of the pretty romance touching George and Hannah is rather lumbering in its construction. The married lovers are said to have kept a little household of their own, and round the hearth thereof we are further told that there were not wanting successive young faces, adding to its happiness. But there came the moment when the dream was to disappear and the sleeper to awaken. We are told by the retailers of the story that Hannah Lightfoot was privately disposed of—not by bowl, prison, or dagger, but by espousing her to a gentle Strephon named Axford, who, for a pecuniary consideration, took Hannah to wife, and asked no impertinent questions. They lived, at least Hannah did, for a time, in Harper Street, Red Lion Square. The story is an indifferent one, but it has been so often alluded to that some notice of it seemed necessary in this place.

Something more than rumour asserts that the young King was attracted by the stately grace of Elizabeth Spencer, Countess of Pembroke, who is described as a living picture of majestic modesty. In after years, the King looked on the mother of the Napiers, and on the above-named countess, with a certain loving interest. In the intervals of his attacks of insanity, it is said that he used to dwell with impassioned accents on the former beauty of the majestic countess.

The King’s mother had been most averse to the Prussian connection. Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, is said to have done his best to further a union with a subject. The Princess-dowager of Wales and Lord Bute would have selected a princess of Saxe Gotha; but it was whispered that there was a constitutional infirmity in that family which rendered an alliance with it in no way desirable. Besides, George II. said he had had enough of that family already. A Colonel Græme was then despatched to Germany, and rumour invested him with the commission to visit the German courts, and if he could find among them a princess who was faultless in form, feature, and character, of sound health and highly accomplished, he was to report accordingly. Colonel Græme, love’s military messenger, happened to fall in at Pyrmont with the Princess-dowager of Strelitz and her two daughters. At the gay baths and salutary springs of Pyrmont very little etiquette was observed, even in those very ceremonious times, and great people went about less in masquerade and less strait-laced than they were wont to do at home, in the circle of their own courts. In this sort of negligé there was a charm which favoured the development of character, and under its influence the scrutinising colonel soon vicariously fell in love with the young Princess Charlotte, and at once made the report which led to the royal marriage that ensued.

There were persons who denied that this little romantic drama was ever played at all; but as the colonel was subsequently appointed to the mastership of St. Catherine’s Hospital, the prettiest bit of preferment possessed by a Queen-consort, other persons looked upon the appointment as the due acknowledgment of a princess grateful for favours received.

But, after all, the young King is positively declared to have chosen for himself. The King of Prussia at that time was a man much addicted to disregard the rights of his contemporaries, and among other outrages committed by his army, was the invasion, and almost desolating, of the little dominion of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the ducal possession of the Princess Charlotte’s brother. This act inspired, it is said, the lady last-named to pen a letter to the monarch, which was as full of spirit as of logic, and not likely to have been written by so young a lady. The letter, however, was sufficiently spirited and conclusive to win reputation for the alleged writer. Its great charm was its simple and touching truthfulness, and the letter, whether forwarded to George by the Prussian king, or laid before him by his mother the princess-dowager, is said to have had such an influence on his mind, as to at once inspire him with feelings of admiration for the writer. After praising it, the King 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.’

The lady on whom this eulogy was uttered was Charlotte Sophia, the younger of the two daughters of Charles Louis, Duke of Mirow, by Albertina Elizabeth, a princess of the ducal house of Saxe Hilburghausen. The Duke of Mirow was the second son of the Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and was a lieutenant-general in the service of the Emperor of Germany when Charlotte Sophia was born, at Mirow, on the 16th of May 1744. Four sons and one other daughter were the issue of this marriage. The eldest son ultimately became Duke of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and to the last-named place the Princess Charlotte Sophia (or Charlotte, as she was commonly called) and her family removed in 1751, on the death of the Duke Charles Louis.

At seven years of age she had for her instructress that verse-writing Madame de Grabow, whom the Germans fondly and foolishly compared with Sappho. The post of instructress was shared by many partners; but, finally, to the poetess succeeded a philosopher, Dr. Gentzner, who, from the time of his undertaking the office of tutor to that of the marriage of his ‘serene’ pupil, imparted to the latter a varied wisdom and knowledge, made up of Lutheran divinity, natural history, and mineralogy, Charlotte not only cultivated these branches of education with success, but others also. She was a very fair linguist, spoke French perhaps better than German, as was the fashion of her time and country, could converse in Italian, and knew something of English. Other accounts say that she did not begin to learn French till she knew she was to leave Mecklenburgh. Her style of drawing was above that of an ordinary amateur; she danced like a lady, and played like an artist. Better than all, she was a woman of good sense, she had the good fortune to be early taught the great truths of religion, and she had the good taste to shape her course by their requirements. She was not without faults, and she had a will of her own. In short, she was a woman; a woman of sense and spirit, but occasionally making mistakes like any of her sisters.

The letter which she is said to have addressed to the King of Prussia, and the alleged writing of which is said to have won for her a crown, has been often printed; but, well known as it is, it cannot well be omitted from pages professing to give, however imperfectly, as in the present case, some record of the supposed writer’s life: no one, however, will readily believe that a girl of sixteen was the actual author of such a document as the following: ‘May it please your Majesty ... I am at a loss whether I should congratulate or condole with you on your late victory over Marshal Daun, Nov. 3, 1760, since the same success which has covered you with laurels has overspread the country of Mecklenburgh with desolation. I know, Sire, that it seems unbecoming my sex, 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, sure, even conquerors themselves 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 the shepherd are quite 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 a 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 petition, and whose power is capable of repressing the greatest injustice.’

The very reputation of having written this letter won for its supposed author the crown of a Queen-consort. The members of the privy council, to whom the royal intention was first communicated, thought it almost a misalliance for a King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland to wed with a lady of such poor estate as the younger daughter of a very poor German prince. Had they been ethnologists, they might have augured well of a union between Saxon King and Sclavonic lady. The Sclave blood runs pure in Mecklenburgh.

It was on the 8th of July 1761 that the King announced to his council, in due and ordinary form, that having nothing so much at heart as the welfare and happiness of his people, and that to render the same stable and permanent to posterity being the first object of his reign, he had ever since his accession to the throne turned his thoughts to the choice of a princess with whom he might find the solace of matrimony and the comforts of domestic life; he had to announce to them, therefore, with great satisfaction, that, after the most mature reflection and fullest information, he had come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, a princess distinguished by every amiable virtue and elegant endowment, whose illustrious line had continually shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion, and a particular attachment to his Majesty’s family. Lord Hardwicke, who had been fixed upon by the King as his representative commissioned to go to Strelitz, and ask the hand of the Princess Charlotte Sophia in marriage, owed his appointment and his subsequent nomination as master of the buckhounds to his Majesty, to the circumstance that at the King’s accession he had been almost the only nobleman who had not solicited some favour from the Crown. He was so charmed with his mission that everything appeared to him couleur de rose, and not only was he enraptured with ‘the most amiable young princess he ever saw,’ but, as he adds in a letter to his friend, Mr. Mitchel, gratified at the reception he had met with at the court of Strelitz, appearing as he did ‘upon such an errand,’ and happy to find that ‘the great honour the King has done this family is seen in its proper light.’ The business, as he remarks, was not a difficult one. There were no thorns in his rosy path. The little court, he tells us, exerted its utmost abilities to make a figure suitable for this occasion, and, in the envoy’s opinion, they acquitted themselves not only with magnificence and splendour, but with great taste and propriety. His lordship completed the treaty of marriage on the 15th of August. His testimony touching the bride runs as follows:—‘Our Queen that is to be has seen very little of the world; but her very good sense, vivacity, and cheerfulness, I dare say, will recommend her to the King, and make her the darling of the British nation. She is no regular beauty; but she is of a very pretty size, has a charming complexion, very pretty eyes, and finely made. In short, she is a very fine girl.’

Mrs. Stuart, daughter-in-law of Lord Bute, left the following note of the early life of the princess, and of the marriage-by-proxy ceremony, derived from the Queen herself:—

‘Her Majesty described her life at Mecklenburgh as one of extreme retirement. She dressed only en robe de chambre, except on Sundays, on which day she put on her best gown, and after service, which was very long, took an airing in a coach-and-six, attended by guards and all the state she could muster. She had not “dined” at table at the period I am speaking of. One morning her eldest brother, of whom she seems to have stood in great awe, came to her room in company with the duchess, her mother.... In a few minutes the folding doors flew open to the saloon, which she saw splendidly illuminated; and then appeared a table, two cushions, and everything prepared for a wedding. Her brother then gave her his hand, and, leading her in, used his favourite expression—“Allons, ne faites pas l’enfant, tu vas être Reine d’Angleterre.” Mr. Drummond then advanced. They knelt down. The ceremony, whatever it was, proceeded. She was laid on the sofa, upon which he laid his foot; and they all embraced her, calling her “La Reine.”’

‘La Reine’ was not such ‘a very fine girl’ as not to be startled by the superior beauty of the two principal ladies who were sent to escort her to London. When the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh first looked upon the brilliant Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, she could not help exclaiming, with a sentiment apparently of self-humility, ‘Are all the women in England as beautiful as you are?’

The convoying fleet sent to conduct the princess to England was commanded by the great Lord Anson. The Tripoline ambassador could not but admire the honour paid by his Majesty in sending so high an officer—‘the first eunuch,’ as the Mahometan called him—to escort the bride to her new home.’

When the marriage treaty had been formally concluded, after some delay caused by the death of the mother of the princess, the little city of Strelitz became briefly mad with joy and exultation. There were illuminations, balls, fireworks, and artillery; and for two days stupendous state banquets followed each other, and said much for the digestion of those who enjoyed them. On the 17th of August the princess left Strelitz, accompanied by her brother, the grand duke, and in four days arrived at Stade amid demonstrations of great delight on the part of the population, ever grateful for an excitement and especially so for one afforded them by a young Queen—as the bride elect was already considered. On the 22nd she embarked at Cuxhaven amid a salute from the whole fleet. For more than a week she was as disrespectfully tossed and tumbled about by the rough sea, over which her path lay, as the Hero of New Zealand buffeting the waves to meet her dusky Leander. During the voyage a wave washed a sailor from the deck, and he perished in the surging waters. At the end of the voyage the bride was, rather unnecessarily informed of the calamity. She had been undisturbed by any cry of ‘Man overboard!’

The royal yacht which bore the youthful bride was surrounded by the squadron forming the convoy; and across as boisterous a sea as ever tried a ship or perplexed a sailor the bride was carried in discomfort but safety, till, on the evening of Sunday, the 6th of September, the fleet and its precious freight arrived off Harwich. It was Sunday evening, and the fact was not known in London till Monday morning. The report of the ‘Queen’ having been seen off the coast of Sussex on Saturday was current, but there was great uncertainty as to where she was, whether she had landed, or when she would be in town. ‘Last night, at ten o’clock,’ says Walpole on Tuesday morning, ‘it was neither certain where she landed nor when she would be in town. 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 in St. James’s Street. This messenger who 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 those 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 bride’s-maids whipped 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 lady so impatiently looked for remained on board the yacht throughout the Sunday night. Storm-tost as she had been, she had borne the voyage well, and had ‘been sick but half an hour, singing and playing on the harpsichord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time.’

On Monday she landed, but not till after dinner, and then was received in the ancient town by the authorities, and with all the usual ceremonies which it is the curse of very great people to be fated to encounter. Had the young King been a really gallant monarch he would have met his bride on the sea-shore; but etiquette does not allow of sovereigns being gallant, and the princess was welcomed by no higher dignitary than a mayor. In the afternoon she journeyed leisurely on to Colchester, where she was entertained at the house of a loyal private individual, Mr. Enew. Here Captain Birt served her with coffee, and Lieutenant John Seaber waited on her with tea; this service being concluded, an inhabitant of the town presented her with a box of candied eringo-root. This presentation is always made, it would seem, to royalty when the latter honours Colchester with a passing visit. The old town is, or was, proud of its peculiar production, ‘candied eringo-root.’ On the occasion in question the presenter learnedly detailed the qualities of the root; and the young princess looked as interested as she could while she was told that the eringium was of the Pentandria Digynia class, that it had general and partial corollæ, and that its root was attenuant and deobstruent, and was therefore esteemed a good hepatic, uterine, and nephritic. Its whole virtue, it was added, consists in its external or cortical part. There was a good opportunity to draw a comparison between the root and the bride, to the advantage of the latter, had the exhibitor been so minded; but the opportunity was allowed to pass, and the owner of the eringo failed to allude to the fact that the beauty in the royal features was surpassed by the virtue indwelling in her heart.

The royal visitor learned all that could well be told her, during her brief stay, of the historical incidents connected with the place, and having taken tea and coffee from the hands of veteran warriors, and candied eringo from Mr. Green, and information touching the visits of Queen Mary and Elizabeth from the clergy and others, the Princess Charlotte, or Queen Charlotte, as she was already called, continued her journey, and by gentle stages arrived at Lord Abercorn’s house at Witham, ‘’twixt the gloaming and the murk,’ at a quarter past seven. The host himself was ‘most tranquilly in town;’ and the mansion was described as ‘the palace of silence.’ The new arrivals, however, soon raised noise enough within its walls; for notwithstanding the dinner before landing, some refreshment taken at Harwich, and the tea, coffee, and candied eringo-root at Colchester, there was still supper to be provided for the tired Queen and her escort. The first course of the supper consisted of a mixture of fowl and fish, ‘leverets, partridges, carp, and soles, brought by express from Colchester, just time enough for supper.’ There were besides many made dishes, and an abundance of the choicest fruits that could be procured. The Queen supped in public, one of the penalties which royalty used to pay to the people. That is, she sat at table with open doors, at which all comers were allowed to congregate to witness the not too edifying spectacle of a young bride feeding. This exploit was accomplished by her Majesty, while Lord Hardwicke and the gallant Lord Anson stood on either side of the royal chair, and to the satisfaction of both actress and spectators.

The Queen slept that night at Witham, and the next day went slowly and satisfiedly on as far as ancient Romford, where she alighted at the house of a Mr. Dalton, a wine-merchant. In this asylum she remained about an hour, until the arrival of the royal servants and carriages from London which were to meet her. The servants having commenced their office with their new mistress by serving her with coffee, the Queen entered the royal carriage, in which she was accompanied by the Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton. As it is stated by the recorders of the incidents of that day that her Majesty was attired ‘entirely in the English taste,’ it may be worth adding, to show what that taste was, that ‘she wore a fly-cap with rich lace lappets, a stomacher ornamented with diamonds, and a gold brocade suit of clothes with a white ground.’ Thus decked out, the Queen, preceded by three carriages containing ladies from Mecklenburgh and lords from St. James’s, was conveyed through lines of people, militia, and horse and foot guards to London. ‘She was much amused,’ says Mrs. Stuart, ‘at the crowds of people assembled to see her, and bowed as she passed. She was hideously dressed in a blue satin quilted jesuit, which came up to her chin and down to her waist, her hair twisted up into knots called a tête de mouton, and the strangest little blue coif at the top. She had a great jewel like a Sevigné, and earrings like those now worn, with many drops, a present from the Empress of Russia, who knew of her marriage before she did herself.’ She entered the capital by the suburb of Mile End, which for dirt and misery could hardly be equalled by anything at Mirow and Strelitz. Having passed through Whitechapel, which must have given her no very high idea of the civilisation of the British people, she passed on westward, and proceeding by the longest route, continued along Oxford Street to Hyde Park, and finally reached the garden-gate of St. James’s at three in the afternoon. Before she left Romford, one of the English ladies in attendance recommended her to ‘curl her toupée; she said she thought it looked as well as that of any of the ladies sent to fetch her; if the King bid her she would wear a periwig; otherwise she would remain as she was.’

‘Just as they entered Constitution Hill one of the ladies said to the other, looking at her watch, “We shall hardly have time to dress for the wedding.” “Wedding!” said the Queen. “Yes, Madam, it is to be at twelve.” Upon this she fainted. Lady Effingham, who had a bottle of lavender water in her hand, threw it in her face.’ The travelling bride had, up to this time, exhibited much self-possession and gaiety of spirit throughout the journey, and it was not till she came in sight of the palace that her courage seemed to fail her. Then, for the first time, ‘she grew frightened and grew pale. The Duchess of Hamilton smiled; the princess said, “My dear duchess, you may laugh, you have been married twice; but it’s no joke to me.”’

Walpole, writing at ‘twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not in the middle of the night,’ says: ‘Madam Charlotte is this instant arrived; the noise of the coaches, chaise, horsemen, mob, that have been to see her pass through the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot distinguish the guns.’

When the royal carriage stopped at the garden-gate the bride’s lips trembled, and she looked paler than ever, but she stepped out with spirit, assisted by the Duke of Devonshire, lord-chamberlain. Before her stood the King surrounded by his court. A crimson cushion was laid for her to kneel upon, and (Mrs. Stuart tells us) mistaking the hideous old Duke of Grafton for him, as the cushion inclined that way, she was very near prostrating herself before the duke; but the King caught her in his arms first, and all but carried her upstairs, forbidding any one to enter.

Walpole says of her that she looked sensible, cheerful, and remarkably genteel. He does not say she was pretty, and it must be confessed that she was rather plain; too plain to create a favourable impression upon a youthful monarch, whose heart, even if the story of the Quakeress be a fiction, was certainly pre-occupied by the image of a lady, who, nevertheless, figured that night among the bride’s-maids—namely, Lady Sarah Lennox. ‘An involuntary expression of the King’s countenance,’ says Mr. Galt, ‘revealed what was passing within, but it was a passing cloud—the generous feelings of the monarch were interested; and the tenderness with which he thenceforward treated Queen Charlotte was uninterrupted until the moment of their final separation.’ This probably comes much nearer to the truth than the assertion of Lady Anne Hamilton, who says: ‘At the first sight of the German princess, the King actually shrunk from her gaze, for her countenance was of that cast that too plainly told of the nature of the spirit working within.’ Lord Hardwicke is said to have sent to his wife an unfavourable description of the Queen’s features, which Lady Hardwicke read aloud to her friends. It is added that George III., on hearing of it, was greatly offended.

The King, as before mentioned, led his bride into the palace, where she dined with him, his mother the princess-dowager, and that Princess Augusta who was to give a future queen to England, in the person of Caroline of Brunswick. After dinner, when the bride’s-maids and the court were introduced to her, she said, ‘Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il y en a tant!’ She kissed the princesses with manifest pleasure, but was so prettily reluctant to offer her own hand to be kissed, that the Princess Augusta, for once doing a graceful thing gracefully, was forced to take her hand and give it to those who were to kiss it, which was prettily humble and good. This act set the Queen talking and laughing, at which some severe critics declared that the illustrious lady’s face seemed all mouth. Northcote subsequently declared that Queen Charlotte’s plainness was not a vulgar, but an elegant, plainness. The artist saw another grace in her. As he looked at Reynolds’s portrait of her, fan in hand, Northcote, remembering the sitting, exclaimed, ‘Lord, how she held that fan!’

It is singular that although the question touching precedency, in the proper position of Irish peers on English state occasions, had been settled in the reign of George II., it was renewed on the occasion of the marriage of Queen Charlotte with increased vigour. The question, indeed, now rather regarded the peeresses than the peers. The Irish ladies of that rank claimed a right to walk in the marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own degree. The impudent wits of the day declared that the Irish ladies would be out of their vocation at weddings, and that their proper place was at funerals, where they might professionally howl. The rude taunt was made in mere thoughtlessness, but it stirred the high-spirited Hibernian ladies to action. They deputed Lord Charlemont to proceed to the court of St. James’s, and not only prefer but establish their claim. The gallant champion of dames fulfilled his office with alacrity, and crowned it with success. The royal bride herself was written to, but she, of course, could only express her willingness to see as many fair and friendly faces about her as possible; and she referred the applicants to custom and the lord-chamberlain. The reference was not favourable to the claimants, and Lord Charlemont boldly went to the King himself. The good-natured young monarch was as warm in praise of Irish beauty as if he was about to marry one, but he protested that he had no authority, and that Lord Charlemont must address his claim to the privy council. When that august body received the ladies’ advocate, they required of him to set down his specific claim in writing, so that the heralds, those learned and useful gentlemen, might comprehend what was asked, and do solemn justice to rank and precedency on this exceedingly solemn occasion. Lord Charlemont knew nothing of the heralds’ shibboleth, but he found a friend who could and did help him in his need, in Lord Egmont. By the two a paper was hurriedly drawn up in proper form, and submitted to the council. The collective wisdom of the latter pronounced the claim to be good, and that Irish peeresses might walk in the royal marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own rank, if invited to do so. The verdict was not worth much, but it satisfied the claimants. If the whole Irish peerage, the female portion of it at least, was not at the wedding, it was fairly represented, and when Lord Charlemont returned to Dublin, the ladies welcomed him as cordially as the nymphs in the bridal of Triermain did the wandering Arthur. They showered on him flowers of gratitude, and their dignity was well content to feel assured that they might all have gone to the wedding if they had only been invited.

At seven o’clock the nobility began to flock down to the scene of the marriage in the royal chapel. The night was sultry, but fine. At nine, and not at twelve, the ceremony was performed by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; and perhaps the most beautiful portion of the spectacle was that afforded by the bride’s-maids, among whom Lady Sarah Lennox, Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel were distinguished for their pre-eminent attractions. During the whole ceremony, it is said that the royal bridegroom’s eyes were kept fixed on Lady Sarah especially. That the Queen could not have been so perfectly unpossessed of attractive features as some writers have declared her, may be gathered from a remark of Walpole’s, who was present, and who, after praising the beauty of the bride’s-maids, and that of a couple of duchesses, says: ‘Except a pretty Lady Sunderland, and a most perfect beauty, an Irish Miss Smith, I don’t think the Queen saw much else to discourage her.’ The general impression was different. What this was may be understood by a passage in a letter addressed to Mrs. Montagu’s brother, the Rev. William Robertson, by a friend, in October 1761: ‘The Queen seems to me to behave with equal propriety and civility; though the common people are quite exasperated at her not being handsome, and the people at court laugh at her courtesies.’

All the royal family were present at the nuptials. The King’s brother, Edward, Duke of York, was at his side; and this alleged witness of the King’s alleged previous marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, says Lady Anne Hamilton, ‘used every endeavour to support his royal brother through the trying ordeal, not only by first meeting the princess in her entrance into the garden, but also at the altar.’

The Queen was in white and silver. ‘An endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet,’ says Walpole, ‘lined with crimson, and which, attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes half-way down her waist.’

After the ceremony their Majesties occupied two state chairs on the same side of the altar, under a canopy. The mother of the monarch occupied a similar chair of state on the opposite side; the other members of the royal family were seated on stools, while benches were given to the foreign ministers to rest upon. At half-past ten the proceedings came to a close, and the return of the marriage procession from the chapel was announced by thundering salutes from the artillery of the park and the Tower. ‘Can it be possible,’ said the humble bride, ‘that I am worthy of such honours?’

Walpole says of the royal bride that she did nothing but with good humour and cheerfulness. ‘She talks a good deal,’ says the same writer, ‘is easy, civil, and not disconcerted.’ While the august company waited for supper, she sat down, sung, and played; conversed with the King, Duke of Cumberland, and Duke of York, in German and French. She was reported to have been as conversant with the last as any native, but Walpole only says of it that ‘her French is tolerable.’ The supper was in fact a banquet of great splendour and corresponding weariness. ‘They did not get to bed till two;’ by which time the bride, who had made a weary journey through the heat and dust, and had been awake since the dawn, must have been sadly jaded. ‘Nothing but a German constitution,’ said Mrs. Scott, ‘could have undergone it.’ The same lady says:—‘She did not arrive in London till three o’clock, and besides the fatigue of the journey, with the consequences of the flutter she could not avoid being in, she was to dress for her wedding, be married, have a drawing-room, and undergo the ceremony of receiving company after she and the King were in bed, and all the night after her journey and so long a voyage.’ There are no old fashioned nuptial ceremonies to record and to smile at. Walpole alludes to a civil war and campaign on the question of the bedchamber. ‘Everybody is excluded but the minister; even the lords of the bedchamber, cabinet councillors, and foreign ministers; but it has given such offence that I don’t know whether Lord Huntingdon must not be the scapegoat.’

On the 9th of September the Queen held her first drawing-room. ‘Everybody was presented to her, but she spoke to nobody, as she could not know a soul. The crowd was much less than at a birthday; the magnificence very little more. The King looked very handsome, and talked to her with great good humour. It does not promise as if these two would be the two most unhappy persons in England from this event.’

In contrast with this account of an eye-witness stands the deposition of Lady Anne Hamilton, a passage from whose suppressed book may be cited rather than credited. It reflects, however, much of the popular opinion of that and a far later period. ‘In the meantime,’ writes the lady just named, ‘the Earl of Abercorn informed the princess of the previous marriage of the King, and of the existence of his Majesty’s wife; and Lord Hardwicke advised the princess to well inform herself of the policy of the kingdom, as a measure for preventing much future disturbance in the country, as well as securing an uninterrupted possession of the throne to her issue. Presuming, therefore, that the German princess had hitherto been an open and ingenuous character, such expositions, intimations, and dark mysteries were ill-calculated to nourish honourable feelings, but would rather operate as a check to their further existence. To the public eye the newly married pair were contented with each other; alas! it was because each feared an exposure to the nation. The King reproached himself that he had not fearlessly avowed the only wife of his affections; the Queen, because she feared an explanation that the King was guilty of bigamy, and thereby her claim, as also that of her progeny (if she should have any), would be known to be illegitimate. It appears as if the result of those reflections formed a basis for the misery of millions, and added to that number millions yet unborn.’

This probably is solemn nonsense, as it is certainly indifferent English. We get back to comic truth, at least, in an anecdote told by Cumberland, of Bubb Dodington, who, ‘when he paid his court at St. James’s to her Majesty, upon her nuptials, approached to kiss her hand, decked in an embroidered suit of silk, with lilac waistcoat and breeches, the latter of which, in the act of kneeling down, forgot their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous and uncourtly manner.’ As for the forsaken Ariadne, Lady Sarah Lennox was very soon united to Sir Charles Bunbury; and subsequently to Colonel George Napier, by whom she became mother of ‘the Napiers’, one of whom used to speak sneeringly of George IV. as his ‘cousin.’ Lady Sarah’s old royal lover never made any secret of his admiration of her. The last time he was ever at the play with Queen Charlotte, he remarked to her, of one of the most accomplished of actresses, ‘Miss Pope is still like Lady Sarah!’

Between the wedding drawing-room and the coronation the King and Queen appeared twice in public, once at their devotions and once at the play. On both occasions there were crowds of followers, and some disappointment. At the chapel-royal, the preacher, the Rev. Mr. Schultz, made no allusion to the august couple, but simply confined himself to a practical illustration of his text, ‘Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’ It was a text from the application of which a young sovereign couple might learn much that was valuable, without being preached at. But the crowd, who went to stare, and not to pray, would have been better pleased to have heard them lectured, and to have seen how they looked under the infliction. The King had expressly forbidden all laudation of himself from the pulpit, but the Rev. Dr. Wilson, and Mason the poet, disobeyed the injunction, and, getting nothing by their praise, joined the patriotic side in politics immediately. At the play, to which the King and Queen went on the day after attending church, to witness Garrick, who was advertised to play Bayes, in the ‘Rehearsal,’ the King was in roars of laughter at Garrick’s comic acting; which even made the Queen smile, to whom, however, such a play as the ‘Rehearsal’ and such a part as Bayes must have been totally incomprehensible, and defying explanation. No royal state was displayed on this occasion, but there were the penalties which are sometimes paid by a too eager curiosity. The way from the palace to the theatre was so beset by a violently loyal mob that there was difficulty in getting the royal chairs through the unwelcome pressure. The accidents were many, and some were fatal. The young married couple did not accomplish their first party of pleasure, shared with the public, but at the expense of three or four lives of persons trampled to death among the crowd that had assembled to view their portion of the sight.

The St. ‘James’s Chronicle’ thus reports the scene which took place on the occasion of the royal visit to Drury Lane, on Friday, the 11th of September: ‘Last night, about a quarter after six, their Majesties the King and Queen, with most of the royal family, went to Drury Lane playhouse to see the “Rehearsal.” Their Majesties went in chairs, and the rest of the royal family in coaches, attended by the horse-guards. His Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Devonshire, his lord-chamberlain, and the Honourable Mr. Finch, his vice-chamberlain; and her Majesty was preceded by the Duke of Manchester, her lord-chamberlain, and Lord Cantalupe, her vice-chamberlain, the Earl of Harcourt, her master of the horse, and by the Duchess of Ancaster and the Countess of Effingham. It is almost inconceivable, the crowds of people that waited in the streets, quite from St. James’s to the playhouse, to see their Majesties. Never was seen so brilliant a train, the ladies being mostly dressed in the clothes and jewels they wore at the royal marriage. The house was quite full before the doors were open, so that out of the vast multitude that waited the opening of the doors, not a hundred got in; the house being previously filled, to the great disappointment and fatigue of many thousands; and we may venture to say that there were people enough to have filled fifty such houses. There was a prodigious deal of mischief done at the doors of the house; several genteel women, who were imprudent enough to attempt to get in, had their clothes, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, all torn off them. It is said a girl was killed, and a man so trampled on that there are no hopes of his recovery.’

Among the congratulatory addresses presented to the Queen, on the occasion of her marriage, there was none which caused so much remark as that presented by the ladies of St. Albans. They complained that custom had deprived them of the pleasure of joining in the address presented by the gentlemen of the borough, and that they were therefore compelled to act independently. They profited by the occasion to express a hope that the example set by the King and Queen would be speedily and widely followed. The holy state of matrimony, the St. Albans ladies assured her Majesty, had fallen so low as to be sneered at and disregarded by gentlemen. They further declared that if the best riches of a nation consisted in the amount of population, they were the best citizens who did their utmost to increase that amount: to further which end the ladies of St. Albans expressed a loyal degree of willingness, with sundry logical reasonings which made even the grave Charlotte smile.

It is unnecessary perhaps to enter detailedly upon the programme of the royal coronation. All coronations very much resemble each other; they only vary in some of their incidents. That of George and Charlotte had well-nigh been delayed by the sudden and unexpected strike of the workmen at Westminster Hall. These handicraftsmen had been accustomed to take toll of the public admitted to see the preparations; but soldiers on guard, perceiving the profit to be derived from such a course, allowed no one to enter at all but after payment of an admission fee sufficiently large to gratify their cupidity. The plunderers of the public thereupon fell out, and the workmen struck because they had been deprived of an opportunity of robbing curious citizens. The dispute was settled by a compromise; an increase of wages was made to the workmen, and the military continued to levy with great success upon the purses of civilians, as before.

Nothing further remained to impede the completion of the preparations for the spectacle; but by another strike, a portion, at least, of the public ran the risk of not seeing the spectacle at all. The chairmen and drivers of hired vehicles had talked so largely of their scale of prices for the Coronation Day, that the authorities threatened to interfere and establish a tariff; whereupon the chairmen and their brethren solemnly announced that not a hired vehicle of any description should ply in the streets at all on the day in question; and that if there were a sight worth seeing, the full-dressed public might get to it how they could: they should not ride to it. Thereupon, great was the despair of a very large and interested class. Appeals, almost affectionate in expression, were made to the offended chairmen who led the revolt, and they were entreated to trust to the generous feelings of their patrons, willing to be their very humble servants, for one day. The amiable creatures at last yielded, when it was perfectly understood that the liberal sentiment of riders was to be computed at the rate of a guinea for a ride from the West-end to the point nearest the Abbey which the chairmen could reach. Not many could penetrate beyond Charing Cross, where the bewildered fares were set down amid the mob and the mud, to work their way through both as best they might.

One class of extortionate robbers only succeeded in making unwarrantable gain without interference on the part of the authorities, or appeal on that of the public. The class in question consisted of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who exacted five guineas a foot as the rent or hire of the space for the erection of scaffolding for seats. This caused the tariff of places to be of so costly a nature, that, willing as the public were to pay liberally for a great show, the seats were but scantily occupied.

The popular eagerness which existed, especially to see the young Queen, was well illustrated in the person of a married lady, for whom not only was a front room taken, from the window of which she might see the procession pass, but a bedroom also engaged, and a medical man in attendance; the lady’s condition of health rendering it probable that both might be required before the spectacle had concluded.

Much had been said of the Queen’s beauty, but to that her Majesty had really little pretension. The public near enough to distinguish her features were the more disappointed, from the fact that the portrait of a very pretty woman had been in all the print-shops as a likeness of the young Queen. The publisher, however, had selected an old engraving of a young beauty, and erasing the name on the plate, issued the portrait as that of the royal consort of his Majesty George III. Many were indignant at the trick, but few were more amused by it than her Majesty herself.

As illustrative of the crowds assembled, even on places whence but little could be seen, it may be mentioned that the assemblage on Westminster Bridge (which was no ‘coign of vantage,’ for the platform on which the procession passed could hardly be discovered from it) was so immense as to give rise to a report, which long prevailed, that the structure of the bridge itself had been injured by this superincumbent dead weight.

The multitude was enthusiastic enough, but it was not a kindly endowed multitude. The mob was ferocious in its joys in those days. Of the lives lost, one at least was so lost by a murderous act of the populace. A respectable man in the throng dropped some papers, and he stooped to recover them from the ground. The contemporary recorders of the events of the day detail, without comment, how the mob held this unfortunate man forcibly down till they had trampled him to death! The people must have their little amusements.

It was, perhaps, hardly the fault of the people that these amusements were so savage in character. The people themselves were treated as savages. Even on this day of universal jubilee they were treated as if the great occasion were foreign to them and to their feelings; and a press-gang, strong enough to defy attack, was not the least remarkable group which appeared this day among the free Britons over whom George and Charlotte expressed themselves proud to reign. Such a ‘gang’ did not do its work in a delicate way, and a score or two of loyal and tipsy people, who had joyously left their homes to make a day of it, found themselves at night, battered and bleeding, on board a ‘Tender,’ torn from their families, and condemned to ‘serve the King’ upon the high seas.

The interior of the Abbey displayed, so says the ‘St. James’s Chronicle,’ the finest exhibition of genteel people that the world ever saw. That was satisfactory. The Countess of Northampton carried three hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds upon her, and other ladies dropped rubies and other precious stones from their dresses in quantity sufficient to have made the fortune of any single finder. The day, too, did not pass without its ominous aspect. As the King was moving with the crown on his head, the great diamond in the upper portion of it fell to the ground, and was not found again without some trouble.

Perhaps the prettiest, though not the most gorgeous portion of the show, was the procession of the Princess-dowager of Wales from the House of Lords to the Abbey. The King’s mother was led by the hand of her young son, William Henry. These and all the other persons in this picturesque group were attired in dresses of white and silver; and the spectators had the good sense to admire the corresponding good taste. The princess wore a short silk train, and was consequently relieved from the nuisance of being pulled back by train-bearers. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders in hanging curls, and the only ornament upon her head was a simple wreath of diamonds. She was the best dressed and perhaps not the least happy of the persons present.

The usual ceremonies followed. The Westminster boys sang ‘Vivat Regina’ on the entry of the Queen into the Abbey, and ‘Vivat Rex’ as soon as the King appeared. The illustrious couple engaged for a time in private devotions, were presented to the people, and the divine blessing having been invoked upon them, they sat to hear a sermon of just a quarter of an hour in length, from Drummond, Bishop of Salisbury. The text was sermon in itself. It was from I Kings, x. 9: ‘Because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice.’ The episcopal comment was not a bad one; but when the prelate talked, as he did, of our constitution being founded upon the principles of purity and freedom, and justly poised between the extremes of power and liberty, his sentiment was but poorly illustrated by the presence of that press-gang without, with whom was much power over a people who, in such a presence, enjoyed no liberty.

Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury, placed the crowns on the heads of the Sovereigns, and did not get kissed in return, as was formerly the custom, at least on the part of a newly crowned king. But perhaps the prettiest incident took place when the King was about to partake, with the Queen, of the Sacrament. He desired that he might first put aside his crown, and appear humbly at the table of the Lord. There was no precedent for such a case, and all the prelates present were somewhat puzzled, lest they might commit themselves. Ultimately, and wisely, they expressed an opinion that, despite the lack of authorising precedent, the King’s wishes might be complied with. A similar wish was expressed by Queen Charlotte; but this could not so readily be fulfilled. It was found that the little crown fixed on the Queen’s head was so fastened, to keep it from falling, that there would be some trouble in getting it off without the assistance of the Queen’s dressers. This was dispensed with, and the crown was worn by the Queen; but the King declared that in this case it was to be considered simply as part of her dress, and not as indicating any power or greatness residing in a person humbly kneeling in the presence of God.

The remainder of the ceremonial was long and tedious, and it was quite dusk before the procession returned to the Hall. In the meantime, the champion’s horse was champing his bit with great impatience, as became a horse of his dignity. This gallant grey charger was no other than that which bore the sacred majesty of George II. through the dangers of the great and bloody day at Dettingen. The veteran steed was now to be the leader in the equestrian spectacle at the banquet of that monarch’s successor.

Although there was ample time for the completion of everything necessary to the coronation of George and Charlotte, the earl-marshal forgot some very indispensable items; among others, the sword of state, the state-banquet chairs for the King and Queen, and the canopy. It was lucky that the crown had not been forgotten too. As it was, they had to borrow the ceremonial sword of the Lord Mayor, and workmen built a canopy amid the scenic splendours of Westminster Hall. These mistakes delayed the procession till noon.

It was dark when the procession returned to the Hall; and as the illuminating of the latter was deferred till the King and Queen had taken their places, the cortège had very much the appearance of a funeral procession, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. There were less dignified incidents than these in the course of the day’s proceedings; the least dignified was an awkward rencounter between the Queen herself and the Duke of Newcastle, behind the scenes. Walpole says that ‘some of the procession were dressed over night, slept in arm chairs, and were waked if they tumbled on their heads.’ Noticing some of the ladies present, the same writer adds: ‘I carried my Lady Townshend, Lady Hertford, Lady Anne Conolly, my Lady Hervey, and Mrs. Clive to my deputy’s house at the gate of Westminster Hall. My Lady Townshend said she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. “Why,” said I, “madam, you walked at the last.” “Yes, child,” said she, “but I saw nothing of it. I only looked to see who looked at me.” The Duchess of Queensberry walked; her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. Lord Chesterfield was not present either in Abbey or Hall; for, as he said of the ceremony, he was “not alive enough to march, nor dead enough to walk at it.”’

The scene in the banqueting-hall is further described by Grey and also by Walpole. Grey says of the scene in Westminster Hall: ‘The instant the Queen’s canopy entered fire was given to all the lustres at once by trains of prepared flax that reached from one to the other. To me it seemed an interval of not half a minute before the whole was in a blaze of splendour ... and the most magnificent spectacle ever beheld remained. The King, bowing to the lords as he passed, with his crown on his head and the sceptre and orb in his hands, took his place with great majesty and grace. So did the Queen, with her crown, sceptre, and rod. Then supper was served on gold plate. The Earl Talbot, Duke of Bedford, and Earl of Effingham, in their robes, all three on horseback, prancing and curvetting like the hobby-horses in the “Rehearsal,” ushered in the courses to the foot of the hautpas. Between the courses the champion performed his part with applause.’ ‘All the wines of Bordeaux,’ Walpole writes to George Montagu, ‘and all the fumes of Irish brains cannot make a town so drunk as a royal wedding and a coronation. I am going to let London cool, and will not venture into it again this fortnight. Oh, the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the noise, the hurry! Nay, people are so little come to their senses, that, though the coronation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke of Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, desiring admissions for a ball that they fancied was to be at court last night. People had sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance! If I was to entitle ages, I would call this “the century of crowds.” For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions made Palace Yard the liveliest spectacle in the world: the ball was most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the bunches of peers and peeresses, frequent and full, were as awful as a pageant can be; and yet, for the King’s sake and my own, I never wish to see another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham’s promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept of their proceedings. Lord Effingham vowed the earl-marshal’s office had been strangely neglected, but he had taken such care for the future that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln’s gallery, and even walked about the hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance. She complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig and a stick. “Pho!” said he, “you will only look as if you were taken up by the constable.” She told this everywhere, thinking that the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth! Lady Pembroke alone, at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty. The Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of her own, could make her. Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. The ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party. Lady Westmoreland still handsome, and with more dignity than all. The Duchess of Queensberry looked well, though her locks are milk-white. Lady Albemarle very genteel; nay, the middle age had some good representatives in Lady Holdernesse, Lady Rochford, and Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord Hertford’s dress, for you know no profession comes amiss to me, from a tribune of the people to a habit-maker. Do not imagine that there were not figures as excellent on the other side. Old Exeter, who told the King he was the handsomest man she ever saw; old Effingham, and Lady Say and Sele, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were an excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B. put on rouge upon his wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the Painted Chamber; the Duchess of Queensberry told me of the latter, that she looked like an orange peach, half red and half yellow. The coronets of the peers and their robes disguised them strangely. It required all the beauty of the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough to make them noticed. One there was, though of another species, the noblest figure I ever saw, the high constable of Scotland, Lord Errol: as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the giants at Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person that one considered him as acting so considerable a part in that very hall where a few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woeful. Lord Talbot piqued himself on backing his horse down the Hall, and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty that it entered backwards; and at his retreat, the spectators clapped—a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew Fair doings. He had twenty démêlés, and came off none creditably. He had taken away the table of the Knights of the Bath, and was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the other at the Court of Requests. Sir William Stanhope said, “We are ill-treated, for some of us are gentlemen.” Beckford told the earl it was hard to refuse a table to the City of London, whom it would cost ten thousand pounds to banquet the King, and that his lordship would repent it if they had not a table in the hall; they had. To the barons of the Cinque Ports, who made the same complaint, he said, “If you come to me as lord-steward, I tell you it is impossible; if as Lord Talbot, I am a match for any of you;” and then he said to Lord Bute, “If I were a minister, thus would I talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch; none of your half-measures.”’

With all the solemnity, there was some riot. A passage from a letter written by one James Heming (quoted in ‘Notes and Queries,’ 2nd S., V. II., p. 109) says: ‘Our friend Harry, who was upon the scaffold at the return of the procession, closed in with the rear; at the expense of half a guinea was admitted into the Hall; got brimful of his Majesty’s claret, and in the universal plunder, brought off the glass her Majesty drank in, which is placed in the beaufet as a valuable curiosity.’ There was long a tradition current, that among the spectators at the great ceremony in the Hall was no less a person than the Young Pretender, who was said to have been there incognito, and not without some hope of seeing the gauntlet, defiantly thrown down by the champion, taken up by some bold adherent of his cause. Indeed, it is further reported that preparation had been made for such an attempt, but that (fortunately) it accidentally failed. The Pretender, so runs the legend, was recognised by a nobleman, who, standing near him, whispered in his ear that he was the last person anybody would expect to find there. ‘I am here simply out of curiosity,’ was the answer of the wanderer; ‘but I assure you that the man who is the object of all this pomp and magnificence is the person in the world whom I least envy.’ To complete the chain of reports, it may be further noticed that Charles Edward was said to have abjured Romanism, in the new church in the Strand, in the year 1754.

The night after the coronation there was an unusually grand ball at court. The Queen’s bride’s-maids danced in the white bodiced coats they had worn at the wedding. The Duke of Ancaster was resplendent in the dress which the King had worn the whole of the day before at the coronation, and which he had graciously ordered to be presented to the duke, whose wife was the Queen’s mistress of the robes! The King and Queen retired at eleven o’clock; not an early hour for the period.

There was great gaiety in town generally at this period. The young Queen announced that she would attend the opera once a week—that seemed dissipation enough for her, who had been educated with some strictness in the quietest and smallest of German courts. The weekly attendance of royalty is thus commented upon by Walpole: ‘It is a fresh disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss Chudleigh’s; and Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not subscribe unless we can. The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with all our art to keep our party together. The crowds at the opera and play when the King and Queen go are a little greater than what I remember. The late royalties went to the Haymarket when it was the fashion to frequent the other opera in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. Lord Chesterfield one night came into the latter, and was asked if he had been at the other house? “Yes,” said he, “but there was nobody but the King and Queen; and as I thought they might be talking business, I came away.”’

The theatres, of course, adopted the usual fashion of reproducing the ceremony of the coronation on the stage. Garrick, considering that he was a man of taste, displayed great tastelessness in his conduct on this occasion. After ‘Henry VIII.,’ in which Bensley played the King, Havard acted Wolsey, and Yates—what was so long played as a comic part—Gardiner, and in which Mrs. Pritchard played the Queen, and Mrs. Yates Anne Boleyn, a strange representation of the ceremonial was presented to the public. Garrick, it is said, knowing that Rich would spare no expense in producing the spectacle at the other house, and fearing the cost of competition with a man than whom the stage never again saw one so clever in getting up scenic effects till it possessed Farley, contented himself with the old, mean, and dirty dresses which had figured in the stage coronation of George II. and Caroline. The most curious incident of Garrick’s show was, that by throwing down the wall behind the stage, he really opened the latter into Drury Lane itself, where a monster bonfire was burning and a mob huzzaing about it. The police authorities did not interfere, and the absurd representation was continued for six or seven weeks, ‘till the indignation of the public,’ says Davis, ‘put a stop to it, to the great comfort of the performers, who walked in the procession, and who were seized with colds, rheumatism, and swelled faces, from the suffocation of the smoke and the raw air from the open street.’ Their Majesties did not witness the representation of the coronation at either house. Their first visit was paid to Drury Lane, when the Queen commanded the piece to be played, and her selection was one that had some wit in it. The young bride chose, ‘Rule a Wife and have a Wife.’ The royal visit took place on the 26th of November.

At Covent Garden ‘Henry the Fifth,’ with the coronation, was acted twenty-six times; and ‘Richard the Third,’ with the same pageant, was played fourteen times. That exquisite hussey, Mrs. Bellamy, walked in the procession as the representative of the Queen. Their Majesties paid their first visit in state, on the 7th of January 1762. The King, with some recollection, probably, of his consort’s ‘bespeak’ at Drury Lane, commanded the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor.’ So that in this respect the new reign commenced merrily enough. It had its bons mots. When some persons expressed surprise at the Queen having named Lady Northumberland one of the ladies of her bedchamber, Lady Townshend said, ‘Quite right! the Queen knows no English. Lady Northumberland will teach her the vulgar tongue!’