The Queen never exhibited her cleverness in a clearer light than when, in 1735, she got over the expected difficulty arising from a threatened parliamentary address to the throne for the marriage and settlement of the Prince of Wales. She ‘crushed’ it, to use the term employed by Lord Hervey, by gaining the King’s consent—no difficult matter—to tell the prince that it was his royal sire’s intention to marry him forthwith. The King had no princess in view for him; but was ready to sanction any choice he might think proper to make, and the sooner the better. As if the thing were already settled, the Queen, on her side, talked publicly of the coming marriage of the heir-apparent; but not a word was breathed as to the person of the bride. Caroline, moreover, to give the matter a greater air of reality, purchased clothes for the wedding of her son with the yet ‘invisible lady,’ and sent perpetually to jewellers to get presents for the ideal future Princess of Wales.

The lady, however, was not a merely visionary bride. It was during the absence of the King in Hanover that it was delicately contrived for him to see a marriageable princess—Augusta of Saxe Gotha. He approved of what he saw, and wrote home to the Queen, bidding her to prepare her son for the bridal.

Caroline communicated the order to Frederick, who received it with due resignation. His mother, who had great respect for outward observances, counselled him to begin his preparations for marriage by sending away his ostentatiously maintained favourite, Miss Vane. Frederick pleased his mother by dismissing Miss Vane, and then pleased himself by raising to the vacant bad eminence Lady Archibald Hamilton, a woman of thirty-five years of age and the mother of ten children. The prince visited her at her husband’s house, where he was as well received by the master as by the mistress. He saw her constantly at her sister’s, rode out with her, walked with her daily for hours in St. James’s Park, ‘and, whenever she was at the drawing-room (which was pretty frequently), his behaviour was so remarkable that his nose and her ear were inseparable, whilst, without discontinuing, he would talk to her as if he had rather been relating than conversing, from the time he came into the room to the moment he left it, and then seemed to be rather interrupted than to have finished.’24

The first request made by Lady Archibald to her royal lover was, that he would not be satisfied with putting away Miss Vane; but that he would send her out of the country. The prince did not hesitate a moment; he sent a royal message, wherein he was guilty of an act of which no man would be guilty to the woman whom he had loved. The message was taken by Lord Baltimore, who bore proposals, offering an annuity of 1,600l. a year to the lady, on condition that she would proceed to the continent, and give up the little son which owed to her the disgrace of his birth, but to whom both she and the prince were most affectionately attached. The alternative was starvation in England.

Miss Vane had an old admirer, to whom she sent in the hour of adversity, and who was the more happy to aid her in her extremity as, by so doing, he would not only have some claim on her gratitude, but that he could, to the utmost of his heart’s desire, annoy the prince, whom he intensely despised.

Lord Hervey sat down, and imagining himself for the nonce in the place of Miss Vane, he wrote a letter in that lady’s name. The supposed writer softly reproved the fickle prince, reminded him of the fond old times ere love yet had expired, resigned herself to the necessity of sacrificing her own interests to that of England, and then running over the sacrifices which a foolish woman must ever make—of character, friends, family, and peace of mind—for the fool or knave whom she loves with more irregularity than wisdom, she burst forth into a tone of indignation at the mingled meanness and cruelty of which she was now made the object, and finally refused to leave either England or her child, spurning the money offered by the father, and preferring any fate which might come, provided she were not banished from the presence and the love of her boy.

Frederick was simple enough to exhibit this letter to his mother, sisters, and friends, observing at the same time that it was far too clever a production to come from the hand of Miss Vane, and that he would not give her a farthing until she had revealed the name of the ‘rascal’ who had written it. The author was popularly set down as being Mr. Pulteney.

On the other hand, Miss Vane published the prince’s offer to her, and therewith her own letter in reply. The world was unanimous in condemning him as mean and cruel. Not a soul ever thought of finding fault with him as immoral. At length a compromise was effected. The prince explained away the cruel terms of his own epistle, and Miss Vane withdrew what was painful to him in hers. The pension of 1,600l. a year was settled on her, with which she retired to a mansion in Grosvenor Street, her little son accompanying her. But the anxiety she had undergone had so seriously affected her health that she was very soon after compelled to proceed to Bath. The waters were not healing waters for her. She died in that city, on the 11th of March 1736, having had one felicity reserved for her in her decline, the inexpressible one of seeing her little son die before her. ‘The Queen and the Princess Caroline,’ says Lord Hervey, ‘thought the prince more afflicted for the loss of this child than they had ever seen him on any occasion, or thought him capable of being.’

One of the most cherished projects of George the Second was the union by marriage of two of his own children with two of the children of the King of Prussia. Such an alliance would have bound more intimately the descendants of Sophia Dorothea through her son and daughter. The double marriage was proposed to the King of Prussia, in the name of the King of England, by Sir Charles Hotham, minister-plenipotentiary. George proposed that his eldest son, Frederick, should marry the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia, and that his second daughter should marry the same King’s eldest son. To these terms the Prussian monarch would not agree, objecting that if he gave his eldest daughter to the Prince of Wales, he must have the eldest, and not the second, daughter of George and Caroline for the Prince of Prussia. Caroline would have agreed to these terms; but George would not yield: the proposed intermarriages were broken off, and the two courts were estranged for years.

The Prussian princess, Frederica Wilhelmina, has published the memoirs of her life and times; and Ranke, quoting them in his ‘History of the House of Brandenburgh,’ enters largely into the matrimonial question, which was involved in mazes of diplomacy. Into the latter it is not necessary to enter; but to those who would know the actual causes of the failure of these proposed royal marriages the following passage from Ranke’s work will not be without interest:—

‘Whatever be their exaggerations and errors, the memoirs of the Princess Frederica Wilhelmina must always be considered as one of the most remarkable records of the state of the Prussian court of that period. From these it is evident that neither she herself, nor the Queen, had the least idea of the grounds which made the King reluctant to give an immediate consent to the proposals. They saw in him a domestic tyrant, severe only towards his family, and weak to indifferent persons. The hearts on both sides became filled with bitterness and aversion. The Crown Prince, too, who was still of an age when young men are obnoxious to the influence of a clever elder sister, was infected with these sentiments. With a view to promote her marriage, he suffered himself to be induced to draw up in secret a formal declaration that he would give his hand to no other than an English princess. On the other hand, it is inconceivable to what measures the other party had recourse, in order to keep the King steady to his resolution. Seckendorf had entirely won over General Grumbkoo, the King’s daily and confidential companion, to his side; both of them kept up a correspondence of a revolting nature with Reichenbach, the Prussian resident in London. This Reichenbach, who boasts somewhere of his indifference to outward honours, and who was, at all events, chiefly deficient in an inward sense of honour, not only kept up a direct correspondence with Seckendorf, in which he informed him of all that was passing in England in relation to the marriage, and assured the Austrian agent that he might reckon on him as on himself; but, what is far worse, he allowed Grumbkoo to dictate to him what he was to write to the King, and composed his despatches according to his directions. It is hardly conceivable that these letters should not have been destroyed; they were, however, found among Grumbkoo’s papers at his death. Reichenbach, who played a subordinate part, but who regarded himself as the third party to this conspiracy, furnished on his side facts and arguments which were to be urged orally to the King, in support of his statements. Their system was to represent to the King that the only purpose of England was to reduce Prussia to the condition of a province, and to turn a party around him that might fetter and control all his actions; representations to which Frederick William was already disposed to lend an ear. He wished to avoid having an English daughter-in-law because he feared he should be no longer master in his own house; perhaps she would think herself of more importance than he; he should die, inch by inch, of vexation. On comparing these intrigues, carried on on either side of the King, we must admit that the former—those in his own family—were the more excusable, since their sole object was the accomplishment of those marriages, upon the mere suspicion of which the King broke out into acts of violence which terrified his family and his kingdom and astonished Europe. The designs of the other party were far more serious; their purpose was to bind Prussia in every point to the existing system, and to keep her aloof from England. Of this the King had no idea; he received without suspicion whatever Reichenbach wrote or Grumbkoo reported to him.’

The mutual friends, whose interest it was to keep Prussia and England wide apart, laboured with a zeal worthy of a better cause, and not only broke the proposed marriages, but made enemies of the two Kings. A dispute was built up between them touching Mecklenburgh; and Prussian press-gangs and recruiting parties crossed into the Hanoverian territory, and carried off or inveigled the King of England’s Electoral subjects into the military service of Prussia. This was the most outrageous insult that could have been devised against the English monarch, and it was the most cruel that could be inflicted upon the inhabitants of the Electorate.

The King of Prussia was not nice of his means for entrapping men, nor careful on whose territory he seized them, provided only they were obtained. The districts touching on the Prussian frontier were kept in a constant state of alarm, and border frays were as frequent and as fatal as they were on England and Scotland’s neutral ground, which derived its name from an oblique application of etymology, and was so called because neither country’s faction hesitated to commit murder or robbery upon it. I have seen in the inns near these frontiers some strange memorials of these old times. Those I allude to are in the shape of mandats, or directions, issued by the authorities, and they are kept framed and glazed, old curiosities, like the ancient way-bill at the Swan at York, which announces a new fast coach travelling to London, God willing, in a week. These mandats, which were very common in Hanover when Frederick, after refusing the English alliance, took to sending his Werbers, or recruiters, to lay hold of such of the people as were likely to make good tall soldiers, were to this effect: they enjoined all the dwellers near the frontiers to be provided with arms and ammunition; the militia to hold themselves ready against any surprise; the arms to be examined every Sunday by the proper authorities; watch and ward to be maintained day and night; patrols to be active; and it was ordered, that, the instant any strange soldiers were seen approaching, the alarm-bells should be sounded and preparations be made for repelling force by force. The Prussian Werbers, as they were called, were wont sometimes to do their spiriting in shape so questionable that the most anti-belligerent travellers and the most unwarlike and well-intentioned bodies were liable to be fired upon if their characters were not at once explained and understood. These were times when Hanoverians, who stood in fear of Prussia, never lay down in bed but with arms at their side; times when young peasants who, influenced by soft attractions, stole by night from one village to another to pay their devoirs to bright eyes waking to receive them, walked through perils, love in their hearts, and a musket on their shoulders. The enrollers of Frederick, and indeed those of his great son after him, cast a chill shadow of fear over every age, sex, and station of life.

In the meantime the two Kings reviled each other as coarsely as any two dragoons in their respective services. The quarrel was nursed until it was proposed to be settled, not by diplomacy, but by a duel. When this was first suggested, the place, but not the time, of meeting, was immediately agreed upon. The territory of Hildesheim was to be the spot whereon were to meet in deadly combat two monarchs—two fathers, who could not quietly arrange a marriage between their sons and daughters. It really seemed as if the blood of Sophia Dorothea of Zell was ever to be fatal to peace and averse from connubial felicity.

The son of Sophia Dorothea selected Brigadier-General Sutton for his second. Her son-in-law (it will be remembered that he had married that unhappy lady’s daughter) conferred a similar honour on Colonel Derschein. His English Majesty was to proceed to the designated arena from Hanover; Frederick was to make his way thither from Saltzdhal, near Brunswick. The two Kings of Brentford could not have looked more ridiculous than these two. They would, undoubtedly, have crossed weapons, had it not been for the strong common sense of a Prussian diplomatist, named Borck. ‘It is quite right and exceedingly dignified,’ said Borck one day, to his master, when the latter was foaming with rage against George the Second, and expressing an eager desire for fixing a near day whereon to settle their quarrel—‘it is most fitting and seemly, since your Majesty will not marry with England, to cut the throat, if possible, of the English monarch; but your faithful servant would still advise your Majesty not to be over-hasty in fixing the day: ill-luck might come of it.’ On being urged to show how this might be, he remarked—‘Your gracious Majesty has lately been ill, is now far from well, and might, by naming an early day for voidance of this quarrel, be unable to keep the appointment.’ ‘We would name another,’ said the King. ‘And in the meantime,’ observed Borck, ‘all Europe generally, and George of England in particular, would be smiling, laughing, commenting on, and ridiculing the King who failed to appear where he had promised to be present with his sword. Your Majesty must not expose your sacred person and character to such a catastrophe as this: settle nothing till there is certainty that the pledge will be kept; and, in the meantime, defer naming the day of battle for a fortnight.’

The advice of Borck was followed, and of course the fight never ‘came off.’ The ministers of both governments exerted themselves to save their respective masters from rendering themselves supremely, and perhaps sanguinarily, ridiculous—for the blood of both would not have washed out the absurdity of the thing. Choler abated, common-sense came up to the surface, assumed the supremacy, and saved a couple of foolish kings from slaying or mangling each other. George, however, was resolved, and that for more reasons than it is necessary to specify, that a wife must be found for his heir-apparent; and it was Caroline who directed him to look at the princesses in the small and despotic court of Saxe Gotha. Walpole was the more anxious that the Prince of Wales should be fittingly matched, as a report had reached him that Frederick had accepted an offer from the Duchess of Marlborough of a hundred thousand pounds and the hand of her favourite grand-daughter, Lady Diana Spencer. The marriage, it was said, was to come off privately, at the duchess’s lodge in Richmond Park.

Lord Delawar, who was sent to demand the hand of the Princess Augusta from her brother, the Duke of Saxe Gotha, was long, lank, awkward, and unpolished. There was no fear here of the catastrophe which followed on the introduction to Francesca da Rimini of the handsome envoy whom she mistook for her bridegroom, and with whom she fell in love as soon as she beheld him.

Walpole, writing from King’s College on the 2nd of May 1736, says: ‘I believe the princess will have more beauties bestowed upon her by the occasional poets than even a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope—that all they have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, who have heard that it was rude to talk Latin before women, proposed complimenting her in English; which she will be much the better for. I doubt most of them, instead of fearing their compositions should not be understood, should fear they should; they wish they don’t know what to be read by they don’t know who.’

When the King despatched some half dozen lords of his council to propose to the prince that he should espouse the youthful Princess Augusta, he replied, with a tone of mingled duty and indifference, something like Captain Absolute in the play, that ‘whoever his Majesty thought a proper match for his son would be agreeable to him.’

The match was straightway resolved upon; and as the young lady knew little of French and less of English, it was suggested to her mother that a few lessons in both languages would not be thrown away. The Duchess of Saxe Gotha, however, was wiser in her own conceit than her officious counsellors; and remembering that the Hanoverian family had been a score of years, and more, upon the throne of England, she very naturally concluded that the people all spoke or understood German, and that it would really be needlessly troubling the child to make her learn two languages, to acquire a knowledge of which would not be worth the pains spent upon the labour.

When princesses then espoused heirs to thrones they were treated but with very scanty ceremony. Their own feelings were allowed to exercise very little influence in the matter; there was no pleasant wooing time; the bridegroom did not even give himself the trouble to seek the bride—he does not always do so, even now; and when the bride married the deputy who was despatched to espouse her by proxy, she knew as little of the principal as she did of his representative. But the blooming young Princess of Saxe Gotha submitted joyfully to custom and the chance of becoming Queen of England. She was willing to come and win what the Prince of Wales, had not dignity made him ungallant, should have gone and laid at her feet and besought her to accept. Accordingly, the royal yacht, William and Mary, destined to carry many a less noble freight before its career was completed, bore the bride to our shores. When Lord Delawar handed the bride ashore at Greenwich, on the 25th of April 1736, she excited general admiration by her fresh air, good humour, and tasteful dress. It was St. George’s day; no inauspicious day whereon landing should be made in England by the young girl of seventeen, who was to be the mother of the first king born and bred in England since the birthday of James II.

The royal bride was conducted to the Queen’s house in the park, where, as my fair readers, and indeed all readers with equal good sense and a proper idea of the fitness of things, will naturally conclude that all the royal family had assembled to welcome, with more than ordinary warmth, one who came among them under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. But the truth is that there was no one to give her welcome but solemn officers of state and criticising ladies-in-waiting. The people were there of course, and the princess had no cause to complain of any lack of warmth on their part. For want of better company, she spent half an hour with the English commonalty; and as she sat in the balcony overlooking the park, the gallant mob shouted themselves hoarse in her praise, and did her all homage until the tardy lover arrived, whose own peculiar homage he should have been in a little more lover-like haste to pay. However, Frederick came at last, and he came alone. The King, Queen, duke, and princesses sent ‘their compliments, and hoped she was well!’ They could not have sent or said less had she been Griselda, fresh from her native cottage and about to become the bride of the prince without their consent and altogether without their will. But the day was Sunday, and perhaps those distinguished personages were reluctant to indulge in too much expansion of feeling on the sacred day.

On the following day, Monday, Greenwich was as much alive as it used to be on a fine fair-day: for the princess dined in public, and all the world was there to see her. That is to say, she and the prince dined together in an apartment the windows of which were thrown open ‘to oblige the curiosity of the people;’ and it is only to be hoped that the springs of the period were not such inclement seasons as those generally known by the name of spring to us. The people having stared their fill, and the princess having banqueted as comfortably as she could under such circumstances, the Prince of Wales took her down to the water, led her into a gaily decorated barge, and slowly up the river went the lovers—with horns playing, streamers flying, and under a fusillade from old stocks of old guns, the modest artillery of colliers and Other craft anxious to render to the pair the usual noisy honours of the way. They returned to Greenwich in like manner, similarly honoured, and there, having supped in public, the prince kissed her hand, took his leave, and promised to return upon the morrow.

On the Tuesday the already enamoured Frederick thought better of his engagement, and tarried at home till the princess arrived there. She had left Greenwich in one of the royal carriages, from which she alighted at Lambeth, where, taking boat, she crossed to Whitehall. Here one of Queen Caroline’s state chairs was awaiting her, and in it she was borne, by two stout carriers, plump as Cupids but more vigorous, to St. James’s Palace. The reception here was magnificent and tasteful. On the arrival of the bride, the bridegroom, already there to receive her, took her by the hand as she stepped out of the chair, softly checked the motion she made to kneel to him and kiss his hand, and, drawing her to him, gallantly impressed a kiss—nay two, for the record is very precise on this matter—upon her lips. All confusion and happiness, the illustrious couple ascended the staircase hand in hand. The prince led her into the presence of a splendid and numerous court, first introducing her to the King, who would not suffer her to kneel, but, putting his arm around her, sainted her on each cheek. Queen Caroline greeted as warmly the bride of her eldest son; and the Duke of Cumberland and the princesses congratulated her on her arrival in terms of warm affection.

The King, who had been irritably impatient for the arrival of the bride, and had declared that the ceremony should take place without him if it were not speedily concluded, was softened by the behaviour of the youthful princess on her first appearing in his presence. ‘She threw herself all along on the floor, first at the King’s and then at the Queen’s feet.’25 This prostration was known to be so acceptable a homage to his Majesty’s pride, that, joined to the propriety of her whole behaviour on this occasion, it gave the spectators great prejudice in favour of her understanding.

The poor young princess, who came into England unaccompanied by a single female friend, behaved with a propriety and ease which won the admiration of Walpole and the sneers of old ladies who criticised her. Her self-possession, joined as it was with modesty, showed that she was ‘well-bred.’ She was not irreproachable of shape or carriage, but she was fair, youthful, and sensible—much more sensible than the bridegroom, who quarrelled with his brothers and sisters, in her very presence, upon the right of sitting down and being waited on in such presence!

The squabbles between the brothers and sisters touching etiquette show the extreme littleness of the minds of those who engaged in them. The prince would have had them, on the occasion of their dining with himself and bride the day before the wedding, be satisfied with stools instead of chairs, and consent to being served with something less than the measure of respect shown to him and the bride. To meet this, they refused to enter the dining-room till the stools were taken away and chairs substituted. They then were waited upon by their own servants, who had orders to imitate the servants of the Prince of Wales in every ceremony used at table. Later in the evening, when coffee was brought round by the prince’s servants, his visitors declined to take any, out of fear that their brother’s domestics might have had instructions to inflict ‘some disgrace (had they accepted of any) in the manner of giving it!’

On the day of the arrival of the bride at St. James’s, after a dinner of some state, and after some rearrangement of costume, the ceremony of marriage was performed, under a running salute from artillery, which told to the metropolis the progress made in the nuptial solemnity. The bride ‘was in her hair,’ and wore a crown with one bar, as Princess of Wales, a profusion of diamonds adding lustre to a youthful bearing that could have done without it. Over her white robe she wore a mantle of crimson velvet, bordered with row upon row of ermine. Her train was supported by four ‘maids,’ three of whom were daughters of dukes. They were Lady Caroline Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond; Lady Caroline Fitzroy, daughter of the Duke of Grafton; Lady Caroline Cavendish, daughter of the Duke of Devonshire,—and with the three bridesmaids who bore the name of the Queen was one who bore that of her whom the King had looked upon as really Queen of England—of Sophia, his mother. This fourth lady was Lady Sophia Fermor, daughter of the Earl of Pomfret. Excepting the mantle, the ‘maids’ were dressed precisely similar to the ‘bride’ whom they surrounded and served. They were all in ‘virgin habits of silver.’ Each bridesmaid wore diamonds of the value of from twenty to thirty thousand pounds.

The Duke of Cumberland performed the office of father to the bride, and they were ushered to the altar by the Duke of Grafton and Lord Hervey, the lord and vice-chamberlains of the household. The Countess of Effingham and the other ladies of the household left the Queen’s side to swell the following of the bride. The Lord Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapel Royal, officiated on this occasion; and when he pronounced the two before him to have become as one, voices in harmony arose within, the trumpets blazoned forth their edition of the event, the drums rolled a deafening peal, a clash of instruments followed, and above all boomed the thunder of the cannon in the park, telling in a million echoes of the conclusion of the irrevocable compact. A little ceremony followed in the King’s drawing-room, which was in itself appropriate, and which seemed to have heart in it. On the assembling there of the entire bridal party, the newly-married couple went, once more hand in hand, and kneeling before the King and his consort, who were seated at the upper end of the room, the latter solemnly gave their blessing to their children and bade them be happy.

A royally joyous supper succeeded, at half-past ten, where healths were drunk and a frolicsome sort of spirit maintained, as was common in those somewhat ‘common’ times. And then followed a sacred portion of the ceremony, which is now considered as being more honoured in the breach than the observance. The bride was conducted processionally to her sleeping apartment; while the prince was helped to disrobe by his royal sire, and his brother the duke. The latter aided in divesting him of some of his heavy finery, and the King very gravely ‘did his royal highness, the prince, the honour to put on his shirt.’ All this must have been considered more than nuisance enough by the parties on whom it was inflicted by way of honour, but the newly-married victims of that day had much more to endure.

When intimation had been duly made that the princess had been undressed and re-dressed by her maids, and was seated in the bed ready to receive all customary and suitable honour, the King and Queen entered the chamber. The former was attired in a dress of gold brocade, turned up with silk, embroidered with large flowers in silver and colours, with a waistcoat of the same, and buttons and star dazzling with diamonds. Caroline was in ‘a plain yellow silk, robed and faced with pearls, diamonds, and other jewels, of immense value. The Dukes of Newcastle, Grafton, and St. Albans, the Earl of Albemarle, Colonel Pelham, and many other noblemen, were in gold brocades of from three to five hundred pounds a suit. The Duke of Marlborough was in a white velvet and gold brocaded tissue. The waistcoats were universally brocades with large flowers. It was observed,’ continues the court historiographer, ‘most of the rich clothes were of the manufactures of England, and in honour of our own artists. The few which were French did not come up to those in goodness, richness, or fancy, as was seen by the clothes worn by the royal family, which were all of the British manufacture. The cuffs of the sleeves were universally deep and open, the waists long, and the plaits more sticking out than ever. The ladies were principally in brocades of gold and silver, and wore their sleeves much lower than had been done for some time.’

When all these finely dressed people were assembled, and the bride was sitting upright in bed, in a dress of superb lace, the princely bridegroom entered, ‘in a nightgown of silver stuff and cap of the finest lace.’ He must have looked like a facetious prince in a Christmas extravaganza. However, he took his place by the side of the bride; and while both sat ‘bolt upright’ in bed, the ‘quality’ generally were admitted to see the sight, and to smile at the edifying remarks made by the King and other members of the royal family who surrounded the couch.

The record of this happy event would hardly be complete were we to omit to notice that it was made the occasion of a remarkable débût in the House of Commons. An address congratulatory of the marriage was moved by Mr. Lyttelton, and the motion was seconded by Mr. Pitt, subsequently the first Earl of Chatham, who then made his first speech in parliament. The speech made by Lyttelton was squeaking and smart. That of Cornet Pitt, as he was called, was so favourable to the virtues of the son, and, by implication, so insulting to the person of the father, that it laid the foundation of the lasting enmity of George against Pitt—an enmity the malevolence of which was first manifested by depriving Pitt of his cornetcy. The poets were, of course, as polite as the senators, and epithalamia rained upon the happy pair in showers of highly complimentary and very indifferent verse. The lines of Whitehead, the laureate, were tolerably good, for a laureate, and the following among them have been cited ‘as containing a wish which succeeding events fully gratified.’

If these set ringing the most harmonious of the echoes which Parnassus could raise on the occasion, the other metrical essays must have been wretched things indeed. But the Muse at that time was not a refined muse. If a laureate would only find rhyme, decency and logic were gladly dispensed with.

The prince was very zealous and painstaking in introducing his bride to the people. For this purpose they were often together at the theatre. On one of these occasions the princess must have had but an indifferent idea of the civilisation of the people over whom she fairly expected one day to reign as queen-consort. The occasion alluded to was on the 3rd of May 1736, when great numbers of footmen assembled, with weapons, in a tumultuous manner, broke open the doors of Drury Lane Theatre, and fighting their way to the stage-doors, which they forced open, they prevented the Riot Act being read by Colonel de Veal, who nevertheless arrested some of the ringleaders and committed them to Newgate. In this tumult, founded on an imaginary grievance that the footmen had been illegally excluded from the gallery, to which they claimed to go gratis, many persons were severely wounded, and the terrified audience hastily separated; the prince and princess, with a large number of persons of distinction, retiring when the tumult was at its highest. The Princess of Wales had never witnessed a popular tumult before; and, though this was ridiculous in character, it was serious enough of aspect to disgust her with that part of ‘the majesty of the people’ which was covered with plush.

The King, in spite of Sir Robert Walpole’s threat, proceeded to Hanover in the month of May. Before he quitted England he sent word to his son that, wherever the Queen Regent resided, there would be apartments for the Prince and Princess of Wales. Frederick looked upon this measure in its true light, namely, as making him a sort of prisoner, and preventing the possibility of two separate courts in the King’s absence. The prince determined to disobey his father and thwart his mother. When the Queen removed from one residence to another, he feigned preparations to follow her, and then feigned obstructions to them. He pleaded an illness of the princess which did not exist, and was surprised that his medical men declined to back up his lie by another of their own. The Queen on her side, feigning anxious interest in her daughter-in-law, visited her in her imaginary illness; but the patient, who was first said to be suffering from measles, then from a rash, and finally was declared to be really indisposed with a cold, was kept in a darkened room, and was otherwise so trained to deceive that Caroline left the bed-side as wise as when she went to it. In this conduct towards his mother Frederick was chiefly influenced by his ill-humour at the Queen’s being appointed regent. When she opened the commission at Kensington, which she always did as soon as she received intelligence of the landing of the King in Holland, Frederick would not attend the council, but contrived to reach the palace just after the members had concluded their business.