There had been, during the recent years of Charlotte’s married life, no lack of either private or public trials and misfortunes. The struggles of the government at home against the press had signally failed; and that against the American colonies, wherein France, Spain, and Holland were arrayed against England, ended in the acknowledgment, on our part, of the independence of the United States. The unpopularity of the King, who applied for and received 100,000l. per annum in addition to the 400,000l. granted to him at his accession, was extended to the Queen. The King was insulted by a female, said to be insane, as he was proceeding in his chair to the Haymarket Theatre. This circumstance rendered the Queen ill at ease for several days. Her sympathy could at no time, however, induce the King to grant her a favour, if he thought it was against his sense of right. Thus, few persons more interested themselves to rescue the Reverend Dr. Dodd, the forger, from the hands of the executioner, than Queen Charlotte. Her respect for the sacred office was so great that it seemed to be something shocking that a clergyman should be hanged. But George III. remarked that Dodd’s offence was rendered the more grievous from the fact of his being a clergyman, and that the law must take its course.

During the year 1778 many royal ‘progresses’ were made to the fleet, to the fortified towns on the coast, to the various camps, and to the mansions of the nobility. A general air of festivity was exhibited about the Queen and court, but there was nothing in the condition of the affairs of the kingdom to warrant the apparent joy. By sea and land our flag, though not dishonoured, was not triumphant; and for the moment the most unpopular man in the kingdom was the King himself—obstinate in his determination to govern as well as reign, and daily verging towards that disturbed state of mind which ended at last in hopeless insanity.

Meanwhile, however, the home enjoyments of the court were placid and unexciting. In her ‘progresses’ with the King, Charlotte was not reluctant to maintain the state of a Queen. Her ideas on this subject seem strange to us now. Thus, when she held a court in the old royal city of Winchester, her costume consisted of a scarlet riding-habit, faced with blue, and covered with rich gold embroidery. In the same dress, with the addition of a black hat and a large cockade, she accompanied the King on his visits to the various camps established in the south. Nothing, however, could be more simple than the way of life of this royal pair when really ‘at home.’ Its simplicity extracted from a foreigner who witnessed it the remark that such citizen-like plainness was injurious to royalty, and an encouragement to republicanism.

Adopting as far as possible the descriptions of eye-witnesses of scenes in which the sovereigns enacted the principal part, we will now turn to the gossiping Mrs. Delany’s letters for the report of a visit made in 1779 by the Queen and her royal consort and family to the Duke of Portland’s, at Bulstrode. ‘The royal family,’ says the writer, ‘ten in all, came to Bulstrode at twelve o’clock. The King drove the Queen in an open chaise, with a pair of white horses. The Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick rode on horseback; all with proper attendants, but no guards. Princess Royal and Lady Weymouth in a post-chaise. Princess Augusta, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Adolphus (about seven years old), and Lady Charlotte Finch, in a coach. Prince William, Prince Edward, Duke of Montague, and the Bishop of Lichfield, in a coach; another coach full of attendant gentlemen; among others, Mr. Smelt, whose character sets him above most men and does great honour to the King, who calls him his friend, and has drawn him out of his solitude (the life he had chosen), to enjoy his conversation every leisure moment. These, with all their attendants in rank and file, made a splendid figure as they drove through the park and round the court, up to the house. The day was as brilliant as could be wished, the 12th of August, the Prince of Wales’s birthday. The Queen was in a hat, and in an Italian night-gown of purple lustring, trimmed with silver gauze. She is graceful and genteel. The dignity and sweetness of her manner, the perfect propriety of everything she says or does, satisfies everybody she honours with her instructions so much that beauty is by no means wanting to make her perfectly agreeable; and though awe and long retirement from court made me feel timid on my being called to make my appearance, I soon found myself perfectly at ease; for the King’s conversation and good humour took off all awe but what one must have for so respectable a character, severely tried by his enemies at home as well as abroad. The three princesses were all in frocks. The King and all the men were in uniform, blue and gold. They walked through the great apartments, which are in a line, and attentively observed everything, the pictures in particular. I kept back in the drawing-room, and took that opportunity of sitting down, when the Princess Royal returned to me and said the Queen missed me in the train. I immediately obeyed the summons with my best alacrity. Her Majesty met me half-way, and seeing me hasten my steps, called out to me, “Though I desired you to come, I did not desire you to run and fatigue yourself.” They all returned to the great drawing-room, where there were only two arm-chairs, placed in the middle of the room for the King and Queen. The King placed the Duchess Dowager of Portland in his chair, and walked about, admiring the beauties of the place. Breakfast was offered, all prepared in a long gallery that runs the length of the great apartments (a suite of eight rooms and three closets). The King and all his royal children and the rest of the train chose to go to the gallery, where the well-furnished tables were set, one with tea, coffee, and chocolate, another with their proper accompaniments of eatables, rolls, cakes, &c. Another table with fruits and ices in their utmost perfection, which with a magical touch had succeeded a cold repast. The Queen remained in the drawing-room. I stood at the back of her chair, which, happening to be one of my working, gave the Queen an opportunity to say many obliging things. The Duchess Dowager of Portland brought Her Majesty a dish of tea on a waiter, with biscuits, which was what she chose. After she had drunk her tea, she would not return her cup to the Duchess, but got up and would carry it to the gallery herself; and was much pleased to see with what elegance everything was prepared. No servants but those out of livery made their appearance. The gay and pleasant appearance they all made, and the satisfaction all expressed, rewarded the attention and politeness of the Duchess of Portland, who is never so happy as when she gratifies those she esteems worthy of her attentions and favours. The young royals seemed quite happy, from the eldest to the youngest, and to inherit the gracious manners of their parents. I cannot enter upon their particular address to me, which not only did me honour, but showed their humane and benevolent respect for old age. The King desired me to show the Queen one of my books of plants. She seated herself in the gallery, a table and a book laid before her. I kept my distance till she called me to ask some questions about the mosaic paper work; and as I stood before Her Majesty, the King set a chair behind me. I turned with some confusion and hesitation on receiving so great an honour, when the Queen said, “Mrs. Delany, sit down, sit down; it is not every lady that has a chair brought her by a King.” So I obeyed. Amongst many gracious things, the Queen asked me why I was not with the Duchess when she came, for I might be sure she would ask for me. I was flattered, though I knew to whom I was obliged for this distinction, and doubly flattered by that. I acknowledged it in as few words as possible, and said I was particularly happy at that moment to pay my duty to Her Majesty, as it gave me an opportunity to see so many of the royal family, which age and obscurity had deprived me of. “Oh, but,” said Her Majesty, “you have not seen all my children yet.” Upon which the King came up and asked what we were talking about, which was repeated, and the King replied to the Queen, “You may put Mrs. Delany in the way of doing that by naming a day for her to drink tea at Windsor Castle.” The Duchess of Portland was consulted, and the next day fixed upon, as the Duchess had appointed the end of the week for going to Weymouth.’

In 1779 was born the short-lived Prince Octavius. Before the death of this happy little Prince, Strange, the engraver, consented to engrave his portrait. The Queen did not like the politics of the artist, for he was the most determined Jacobite in the kingdom—except his wife. He was so successful, however, with his ‘plate’ of Octavius, that George III. knighted him; and even his wife thought the better of the ‘Elector and Electress of Hanover’ for having made her what ‘the King over the water’ had never thought of doing—Lady Strange.

The following year was that of the riots of London. While that popular tumult was raging the King behaved with courage and common sense; and the Queen, left almost entirely alone at Buckingham House with her children, with equal calmness and intrepidity. The ‘ladies’ who ought to have been in attendance had hurried homeward with their jewels. The Queen did not lose heart at this desertion, but was amply comforted by the frequent yet brief visits of the King, who spent two entire nights, holding council with the heads of the army, in the Queen’s Riding House.

In the September of this year another prince, Alfred—who shared with his brother Octavius the advantages of dying early—was added to the family of George and Charlotte. This increase, perhaps, inspired her with increase of sympathy for others. In the fall of this year she very warmly seconded the project of Mr. Raikes for the foundation of Sunday Schools. The project was sneered at, snubbed, and satirised by a public who, however, were ultimately wise enough to be grateful.

In 1780, Walpole affords us a glimpse of the alleged rival of Queen Charlotte in company with the Queen’s son. ‘The Prince of Wales has lately made a visit to Lady Cecilia Johnstone, where Lady Sarah Napier was.’ She was the Lady Sarah Lennox who had touched the heart of the King some twenty years before. ‘She did not appear, but he insisted on seeing her, and said, “She was to have been there,” pointing to Windsor Castle. When she came down he said he did not wonder at his father’s admiring her, and was persuaded she had not been more beautiful then.’

In 1781, at the age of nineteen, the Prince of Wales became ‘lord of himself.’ His mother had been his first governess; and at eight years of age he had been delivered by his father to Dr. Markham and Cyril Jackson, with the injunction to treat him as they would any private gentleman’s son, and to flog him whenever he deserved it. Markham acted up to his instructions. The Prince never bore any ill-will to either preceptor or sub-preceptor for their severity; but he took the earliest opportunity of showing his antagonism against his father. In 1772, when the struggle was going on between Wilkes and the crown—for such were the real adversaries—the young Prince made his sire’s ears tingle indignantly with the popular cry of ‘Wilkes and “forty-five” for ever!’

The young Prince’s preceptors were changed in 1776. Lord Bruce became governor in place of Lord Holdernesse; but he retired almost immediately, vexed, it is said, at the Prince having detected him in the commission of a false quantity. Bishop Hurd and the Rev. Mr. Arnold, under the superintendence of the oatmeal-porridge-loving Duke of Montague, were now entrusted to impart what instruction they might to the Prince and his next brother Frederick. They adopted the old plan of severity; but on endeavouring to carry it into effect, when the high-spirited boys were considerably advanced in their teens, one or both of the royal pupils turned on their preceptor, Arnold, who was about most grossly to castigate them, tore the weapon from his hand, and roughly administered to him the punishment with which they themselves had been threatened.

Excess of restraint marred the education of the two elder sons of Charlotte. Even when the Prince was considered of age, and was allowed his own establishment at Kew, the system of seclusion was still maintained. Such a system had its natural consequences. The Prince, ill at ease with his parents, sought sympathy elsewhere; and he was not yet out of his teens when Charlotte was horrified at hearing his name coupled with that of the most bewitching actress of the day.

Had the father of Miss Darby, the maiden name of Mrs. Robinson, been a man of less philanthropic principles, his daughter, probably, would have been a more virtuous and a more happy woman. She was born at Bristol in 1758, and was looked upon as a little heiress, till her father lost the whole of a not inconsiderable fortune by speculating in an attempt to civilise the Esquimaux Indians!

Miss Darby was, for some time, a pupil of Miss Hannah More; but was herself compelled to turn instructress as early as in her fourteenth year. She was, however, a precocious beauty; and the year previous she had received an offer of marriage, which she had declined. The young teacher worked hard and cheerfully, in order that she might be the better enabled to support her mother. The proceeds of this labour also enabled her to increase the number of her own accomplishments; among others, dancing. Her master was a Covent Garden ballet-master, who introduced her to Garrick, and Roscius brought her out on the stage, in the character of Cordelia with success.

Before she had terminated her sixteenth year she married Mr. Robinson, an articled clerk in an attorney’s office, with a good fortune, upon which the youthful couple lived in splendour till it was gone, and the husband was arrested. His wife then spent fifteen months with him in prison, and then misery drove her again to Garrick, who gave her some instruction, rehearsed Romeo to her Juliet, and, bringing her out in the latter character, gave to the stage one of the handsomest and youngest and most captivating of actresses who had ever charmed the town.

Her Juliet was admirable, but her Perdita, in the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ set the town mad. On the 3rd of December 1779 she played the character in presence of George III., Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the royal family, and a numerous audience. When she entered the green-room, dressed for the part, she looked so bewitching that Smith exclaimed, ‘By Jove! you will make a conquest of the Prince, for you look handsomer than ever.’ Smith’s prediction was true; and letters from the Prince, signed ‘Florizel,’ were delivered to Perdita by no less noble a go-between than the Earl of Essex.

The position of Perdita Robinson at this time was peculiar: her husband was living in profligacy upon the wages of her labour, and she had refused the most brilliant offers made to her on condition of separating from him. She refused them all; but lent too ready an ear to the princely suitor, who now besieged her with indifferently-written letters and promises of never-dying affection. An interview was contrived, first in a boat moored off Kew, and afterwards in Kew Gardens by moonlight, at which the Bishop of Osnaburgh was present—by way of playing propriety, perhaps—and at which there appears to have been little said, but much feared, lest the parties should be found out.

The prince and Perdita became so attached to each other after a few more interviews that she declared she should never forget the magic with which she was wooed, and he presented her with a bond for 20,000l., to be paid on his coming of age. When that period arrived—it happened in a few months—‘Florizel’ would not pay the money, and had grown weary of the lady. To modify her despair, he granted a last interview, in which he declared that his affection for her was as great as ever; and the poor lady, who trusted in the declaration, was passed by on the following day, in the park, without a sign of recognition on the part of her princely betrayer. The remark which she made on this conduct was worthy of Talleyrand for its sting, smartness, and application—but it is as well, perhaps, to leave it unquoted.

She had quitted the stage to please him, and now, in her embarrassment, sought refuge abroad, living in straitened circumstances in Paris, till, by the intervention of Mr. Fox, an annuity was settled upon her of 500l. a-year. With this she maintained some splendour, and she was even noticed by Marie Antoinette as La belle Anglaise. The gift of a purse netted by the royal hand of that unfortunate Queen, and conferred by her on Perdita, showed at once the sovereign lady’s admiration and lack of judgment and propriety.

For some time she resided alternately in England and France, but ultimately, she settled at Brighton, about the time that Mrs. Fitzherbert was there in the brightest of her beauty and the height of her splendour. The ex-actress wrote pretty poetry, and was the authoress of a dozen novels: poetry and romances are now forgotten; but the former does not want for tenderness of sentiment and expression, nor the latter for power and good sense. Finally, in 1799, she undertook the poetical department of the Morning Post, retained her office for a few months, and died in the year 1800.

Perdita was not without her grievous faults; but she had her virtues, too. She was the loving and helping child of her mother, and she was the loving and helping mother of her child. For her mother and her daughter she worked at her literary occupations with unwearied fervour, and even Hannah More may have refrained from casting reproach on her erring and yet not worthless pupil.

In 1783 the Prince of Wales had allotted to him a separate establishment. He could have none more appropriate than that old Carlton House which had been the residence of his grandfather, Frederick Prince of Wales—a man whom he resembled in many respects. The old house was originally built on a part of the royal garden around St. James’s Palace, a lease whereof was granted for that purpose by Queen Anne to Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton. This was in 1709. Sixteen years subsequently, on the death of Lord Carlton, the house was occupied by his heir and nephew, Richard Boyle (Lord Burlington, the architect), who seven years later (1732) gave it to his mother, the Dowager Lady Burlington, by whom, in the same year, it was made over to Frederick Prince of Wales, father of George III. The gardens, laid out by Kent, like Pope’s grounds at Twickenham, extended westward as far as Marlborough House. The first change that Frederick made was to construct a bowling-green, the healthy exercise of bowls being then fashionable; and he inaugurated his entry by a grand ball, given, as the Daily Post says, ‘to several persons of quality and distinction of both sexes.’

George Prince of Wales found the old house rather antiquated as to fashion and dilapidated as to condition, and he employed Holland, the architect, to correct these defects. The artist did that, and more. He added the Ionic screen, some of the pillars of which are now in Queen Charlotte’s favourite gardens at Kew, and the Corinthian portico, the columns of which, when the house was taken down in 1827, were transferred to the National Gallery. On the two residences of the two eldest sons of Queen Charlotte, Southey, in his ‘Espriella’s Letters,’ has a remark worth quoting. The Duke of York’s mansion (Melbourne House, Whitehall), now known as Dover House, was distinguished by a circular court, which served as a sort of entrance-hall. It still remains, and may be seen from the street. The distinguishing feature of Carlton House was the row of pillars in front. ‘These two buildings being described to the late Lord North, who was blind in the latter part of his life, he facetiously remarked, “Then the Duke of York, it should seem, has been sent to the round-house, and the Prince of Wales is put in the pillory.”’

Meanwhile, despite the Prince’s escapades, the least innocent of which was his visiting a Quaker’s meeting disguised as a female Friend—where he was betrayed by the appearance of his leather breeches, seen through the pocket-hole of the gown—despite these and other escapades, the Queen’s affection for her son was in no wise diminished. In 1782 she had brought tambouring into fashion by embroidering for him, with her own hands, a waistcoat, which he wore at the first ball at which his sister, the princess royal, appeared in public. The Queen, however, had more serious subjects for her consideration. She had to mourn over the death of the infant Alfred, and for the loss of a sister. We find also, this year, the first direct proof of her having interfered in politics. It was in 1782 that Charlotte commissioned Hutten, the Moravian, to enter into correspondence with Franklin, with a view of conciliating matters with the United States.

The eldest son of Queen Charlotte began life very amply provided for; Parliament gave him 100,000l. as an outfit, and 50,000l. annually by way of income. Three months after the birth of his youngest sister, Amelia, in November 1783, he took his seat in the House of Peers, joined the opposition, gave himself up to the leading of the opposition chiefs, whether in politics or vices, was praised by the people for his spirit, and estranged from the King, who did not like the principles of those who called themselves his son’s friends, and who held in horror the vices and follies for which they were distinguished. He was as often present under the gallery of the Commons as in his seat in the Lords. Such a presence is never acceptable, in such a place, to the representatives of the people. It perhaps influences the votes, and certainly affects the liberty of debate. As much was hinted to the Prince, when he used to watch the struggle in the Commons between the Coalition and Pitt. He made the hint his excuse for being disgusted with politics, and thereupon devoted himself to but one pursuit—the love of pleasure. But if he had only one pursuit, it had many varieties and objects. He hunted after what was called ‘pleasure’ in every form, squandered fortunes in not finding it, and made what he called ‘love’ and extraordinary presents to two ladies at one and the same time. Mrs. Crouch, the actress, and Mrs. Fitzherbert (whom he married), were the Lucy and Polly to whom this light-of-heart prince gaily sang his ‘How happy could I be with either!’

Walpole speaks very highly (in 1783) of the Prince’s brother, William Henry, whom he met at Gunnersbury, the suburban seat of the old Princess Amelia. ‘He had been with the Princess in the morning,’ writes Walpole, ‘and returned of his own accord to dinner. She presented me to him, and I attempted, at the risk of tumbling on my nose, to kiss his hand, but he would not let me. You may trust me, madam, who am not apt to be intoxicated with royalty, that he is charming. Lively, cheerful, talkative, manly, well-bred, sensible, and exceedingly proper in all his replies. You may judge how good-humoured he is, when I tell you that he was in great spirits all day, though with us old women; perhaps he thought it preferable to Windsor.’

The Prince of Wales was already overwhelmed with debt. The domestic comfort of the Queen was even more disturbed than that of her consort by the solicitations made by the so-called friends of the Prince of Wales to induce the King to pay the debts of his eldest son. Her Majesty’s confidence is said to have been fully placed at this time upon Mr Pitt. A conversation is spoken of as having passed between the Queen and the minister, in which he is reported as having said, ‘I much fear, your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild moments, may allow expressions to escape him that may be injurious to the crown.’ ‘There is little fear of that,’ was the alleged reply of the Queen; ‘he is too well aware of the consequences of such a course of conduct to himself. As regards that point, therefore, I can rely upon him.’ Mr. Pitt inquired if her Majesty was aware of the intimacy which then existed between Mrs. Fitzherbert and the heir-apparent, and that reports of an intended marriage were current? ‘He is now so much embarrassed,’ added the minister, ‘that at the suggestion of his friend Sheridan he borrows large amounts from a Jew who resides in town, and gives his bonds for much larger amounts than he receives.’

In the family dissensions caused by this unhappy subject neither sire nor son behaved with fairness and candour. In 1784, the Prince had been required to send in an exact account of his debts, with a view to their liquidation. The King had, at least, intimated that he would discharge the Prince’s liabilities if this account was rendered. The account was rendered; but, after having been kept for months, it was returned as not being exact. The inexactness of this statement consisted of an item of 25,000l. being entered without any explanation as to whom it was owing. The Prince refused to make such explanation, on the ground that it was a secret of honour between him and his noble creditor, in whom many persons affected to see the famous, or infamous, Duke of Orleans. The King declared that, if the Prince was ashamed to explain the nature of the debt, his father ought not to be expected to pay it; and there the matter rested.

By the following year his debts amounted to 160,000l., and he could see no chance of relief but by going abroad. His first idea was of a residence in Holland, and he was ready to proceed thither as a private individual, should the King refuse to consent to his leaving England. All that he wished for, according to his own declarations, was to economise, to live in retirement, and remain unknown, until he could appear in a style suitable to his rank. He complained of the unreasonableness of the King’s proposition, that he should lay by 10,000l. a-year to pay his debts, at a time, he said, when his expenses were twice as great as his income. Such complaint could only come from a radically dishonest man; for it is only such a man who, with an income on which he could very well afford to live—and spare—could complacently talk of even allowing his expenses to exceed his revenue.

The Prince affected to think that he might, perhaps, be able to live in retirement at some of the small German courts, fancying that, under the title of the Earl of Chester, his actions would not be judged of as those of a Prince of Wales. At all events, he declared that to live in England would be ruin and disgrace to him; for that the King hated him, wished to set him at variance with his brothers, and would not even let Parliament assist him till he should marry. The King’s hatred for his son, according to the latter, had existed from the time he was seven years old. Reconciliation was deemed by the Prince impossible; for his father, he said, had not only deceived him, but made him deceive others. The son could not trust the father, and the father had no belief in the veracity of the son.

The ministry were not disinclined, at this time, to increase the Prince’s allowance, provided only that he would appropriate some portion of it to the payment of his debts, renounce his project of going abroad, and consent to a reconciliation with the King, by ceasing to be a man of political party in opposition to the government. The sum proposed was 100,000l. per annum, the half of which was to be reserved for the payment of his debts. The Prince describes the offer as useless, inasmuch as that, though the ministry might sanction it, the King would not hear of it, and Pitt could not carry such a measure in Parliament. The Prince asserted his belief that so rooted was his father’s hatred of him that he would turn out Pitt if he ventured to propose such a measure. Further, the Prince refused to abandon Fox and his other political friends. Lord Malmesbury was very anxious to bring the Prince to terms; but the latter still dwelt upon the bitter paternal hatred. In proof of this he exhibited to Lord Malmesbury copies of the correspondence which had passed between himself and his royal sire on the subject. Lord Malmesbury thus describes the letters, and the spirit which animated the writers:—

‘The Prince’s letters were full of respect and deference, written with great plainness of style and simplicity. Those of the King were also well written, but hard and severe; constantly refusing every request the Prince made, and reprobating in each of them his extravagance and dissipated manner of living. They were void of every expression of parental kindness or affection, and after both hearing them read and perusing them myself, I was compelled to subscribe to the Prince’s opinion, and to confess there was very little appearance of making any impression upon His Majesty in favour of His Royal Highness.’

Lord Malmesbury suggested that, as the Queen must have much at heart the bringing about a reconciliation between her son and his father, such might surely be effected through her and his sisters. The Prince thought it impracticable, and only wished that the public knew all the truth and could judge between him and his sire, anticipating a favourable verdict for himself, which, however, the public would not have given even when in possession of all the facts.

Lord Malmesbury then suggested a means of escape from all difficulties by a marriage which would at once reconcile the King and gratify the nation. The Prince, however, emphatically declared that he would never marry; that he had settled that subject with his brother Frederick; and that his resolution was irrevocable. Lord Malmesbury combated such a resolution, but the Prince remained unconvinced. He owed nothing, he said, to the King. Frederick would marry, and his children would inherit the crown. His adviser suggested that a bachelor King, as he would be, would have less hold on the affections of the people than a married heir and father of children, as his brother would be. ‘The Prince was greatly struck with this observation. He walked about the room apparently angry;’ but, after a few friendly words of explanation, the interlocutors separated, and the scene was at an end.

At the time the Prince said he never would marry he had in his mind that serious marriage which he already had formed with Mrs. Fitzherbert. We may add, with respect to this union and the character of the Prince as a lover, a few words on the authority of Lord Holland.

Never did swain make love so absurdly as the Prince of Wales. For the ‘first gentleman in Europe,’ he was the greatest simpleton, under the influence of ‘passion,’ that ever existed. When he was not silly, he was mean, and he sometimes was both, and heartless to boot, even when he most prattled of the heart-anguish he endured. To Perdita Robinson he was little better than a mere bilking knave. In presence of the majestic Mrs. Fitzherbert he was an undignified coxcomb. He insulted her virtue with proposals which even princes ought not to dare to make without bringing personal chastisement upon themselves. Finding his offers declined, and that the lady was going abroad, he acted, and declared he felt, the utmost despair. But his despair was farcical. He went down to his friends the Foxes, at St. Anne’s, where he ‘cried by the hour, testified the sincerity and violence of his passion and despair by the most extravagant expressions and actions, rolling on the floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing he would abandon the country, forego the crown, sell his jewels and plate, and scrape together a competency, to fly with the object of his affections to America.’

The lady proceeded to the continent, but returned in 1785. She came more prepared to listen to the Prince’s wooing than when she left. He now proposed a marriage, but she knew that, she being a Romanist, such a marriage could not be legal. Indeed, it was illegal for any prince of the blood to marry without the King’s consent, before he had attained the age of twenty-five. After that time he was to notify his intention to Parliament, and if that body did not move the King to withhold his consent within a year, the marriage then might be entered upon. Mrs. Fitzherbert, however, frankly enough said that the ceremony would be all nonsense, and that she was ready to trust to his honour. He insisted, however, and the ceremony was duly performed by an English clergyman. After the solemnisation, the certificate was signed by the clergyman and attested by two witnesses, said to have been Catholics. Mrs. Fitzherbert retained the certificate; but out of a generous fear that harm might come to the witnesses if they should become known she tore off their names. The name of the clergyman (who died before George IV. ascended the throne) remains affixed to the document.

Mr. Fox was not present at this ceremony, but reports were so current as to its being about to take place, or to its having taken place, that he addressed to the Prince a very long, a very strong, and a very sensible letter, of which a rough copy (from Fox’s MS.) will be found in Lord Holland’s ‘Memoirs of the Whig Party.’ In this manly letter the writer points out the madness of such a scheme, the terrible consequences that might ensue, the illegality of the manner, and the possibility, should the Prince enter subsequently into a legal matrimonial union, and there being issue by both, of a disputed succession. He advised, argued, did all that a bold man and honest friend could do to warn the Prince against this union, which, as we before mentioned, was currently reported to have taken place. The Prince, in reply, declared that his ‘dear Charles’ might ‘make himself easy, as there not only is, but never was, any grounds for such reports.’ Armed with this authority, Fox denied in Parliament, on the warrant of the Prince, the assertion of such a union having taken place. The wretched liar who had driven him to assert unconsciously a falsehood was now exposed to a double torment. Mrs. Fitzherbert was angry at the public denial, supposing it to be unauthorised, and urged the Prince to have it announced. The latter prevaricated and promised; appealed to Grey, confessing his marriage, and, when Grey would have nothing to do with it, appealing to Sheridan; the latter made a few remarks in the House wide of the real object, and the marriage remained denied, to the great annoyance of the lady, who continued to be respectfully treated by the royal family. These, if they disbelieved the existence of the connection, must have looked upon Mrs. Fitzherbert as being less worthy of their respect than before. The truth, however, is, that their respect was chiefly manifested when Mrs. Fitzherbert separated herself from her most worthless husband. Documents proving the marriage (long in the possession of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s family) have been, since June 1833, actually deposited, by agreement between the executors of George IV. (the Duke of Wellington and Sir William Knighton) and the nominees of Mrs. Fitzherbert (Lord Albemarle and Lord Stourton), at Coutts’s bank, in a sealed box, bearing a superscription:—‘The property of the Earl of Albemarle; but not to be opened by him without apprising the Duke of Wellington,’ or words to that purport.1

The author of the Diary illustrative of the court of George IV., referring to the time when the eldest son of Queen Charlotte was subdued by the fascinations of Mrs. Fitzherbert, says that the lady in question ‘had a stronger hold over the Regent than any of the other objects of his admiration, and that he always paid her the respect which her conduct commanded.’ She was styled by those who knew her ‘the most faultless and honourable mistress that ever a prince had the good fortune to be attached to’—a judgment which abounds in a confusion of terms, and exhibits mental perversion in him who pronounced it. Of the Regent’s behaviour to the lady, it may be said that it was as gallant and considerate at first as it was mean and censurable at last. In the early days of their intimacy, when they appeared together at the same parties and were on the point of leaving them, ‘the Prince never forgot to go through the form of saying to Mrs. F., with a most respectful bow, “Madam, may I be allowed the honour of seeing you home in my carriage?”’ ‘It was impossible,’ says the same authority, ‘to be in his Royal Highness’s society and not be captivated by the extreme fascination of his manners, which he inherits from his mother the Queen; for his father has every virtue which can adorn a private character as well as make a king respectable, but he does not excel in courtly grace or refinement.’

It should be added, that the intelligence no sooner reached the ears of the Queen than she commanded the attendance of her son, and insisted on knowing the whole truth. The Prince is declared not only to have acknowledged the fact of the marriage, but to have asserted that no power on earth should separate him from his wife. He is reported to have added, in reference to the King’s alleged marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, that his father would have been a happier man had he remained firm in standing by the legality of his own marriage. It would be difficult to say who was at hand to take down the Prince’s speech on this occasion; but, according to the author last named, it was substantially as follows:—‘But I beg farther that my wife be received at court, and proportionately as your Majesty receives her, and pays her attention from this time, so shall I render my attentions to your Majesty. The lady I have married is worthy of all homage, and my very confidential friends, with some of my wife’s relations only, witnessed our marriage. Have you not always taught me to consider myself heir to the first sovereignty in the world? Where then will exist any risk of obtaining a ready concurrence from the House in my marriage? I hope, madam, a few hours’ reflection will satisfy you that I have done my duty in following the impulse of my inclinations, and, therefore, I await your Majesty’s commands, feeling assured you would not blast the happiness of your favourite prince.’ The Queen is said to have been softened by his rather illogical reasoning. It is certain that her Majesty received Mrs. Fitzherbert at a drawing-room in the following year with very marked courtesy.

Sixteen years later, and of course long after the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Caroline of Brunswick, Mrs. Fitzherbert was still so high in the Prince’s favour that we find the following record in Lord Malmesbury’s Diary, under the date of May 25, 1803:—‘Duke of York came to me at five, uneasy lest the Duchess should be forced to sup at the same table as Mrs. Fitzherbert, at the ball to be given by the Knights of the Bath, on the 1st of June. Talks it over with me—says the King and Queen will not hear of it. On the other side, he wishes to keep on terms with the Prince. I say, I will see Lord Henley, who manages the fête, and try to manage it so that there shall be two distinct tables, one for the Prince, to which he is to invite, another for the Duke and Duchess, to which she is to invite her company.’ The dislike of Mrs. Fitzherbert for the Duchess of York was as determined as that entertained by the same lady against Fox, whom she never forgave for denying the fact of her marriage with the Prince.

The Prince’s pecuniary embarrassments pressed more heavily upon him than the troubles arising from his amours. The Prince, in his difficulties, again had recourse to the Queen. He revealed to her the amount of both his difficulties and debts, and reports credited him with having uttered a menace to the effect that, if the King failed to provide some means for the payment of those debts, there were State secrets which he would certainly reveal, whatever the consequences might be, as, suffering as he did from the treatment he met at his father’s hands, he was an object of suspicion or contempt to half the kingdom. The Queen would not engage herself by any promise, but she sent for Mr. Pitt. After this last interview the minister repaired to Carlton House, and the message he bore showed the amount of influence possessed by the Queen. The Prince was assured that means would be found for the discharge of his liabilities. The King promised an additional 10,000l. a year out of the civil list, and Parliament subsequently voted the sum of 161,000l. to discharge the debts of the Prince, with an additional sum of 20,000l. to finish the repairs of Carlton Palace. That mansion had been dull and silent, but it was soon again brilliant, and gaily echoing with the most festive of sounds.