LADY SARAH LENNOX AND GEORGE III[116]

It is certain that the intrigue between the Prince of Wales and Hannah Lightfoot could not have been of long duration, for even before he ascended the throne it was patent to all beholders that he was deeply infatuated with Lady Sarah Lennox, the youngest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and a great-granddaughter of the Merry Monarch.

Lady Sarah had attracted the attention of George II one day when walking in Kensington Gardens by breaking away from her nurse or governess—she was but five years old—and addressing him without ceremony: "Comment vous portez vous, Monsieur le roi? Vous avez une grande et belle maison ici, n'est pas?" Her audacity pleased the sovereign, and he saw her frequently until 1751, when she was sent to Ireland to her aunt, Lady Kildare, with whom she remained until she was thirteen. Then she was placed in the care of Lady Caroline Fox[117] and not long afterwards the King, in spite of her youth, invited his favourite to court, where, however, he played and joked with her as if she was still a little child. The unexpected treatment embarrassed her; she could find nothing to say, and shyly kept her eyes on the ground, whereupon the King turned from her, saying, "Pooh! she's quite stupid." The young Prince of Wales was "struck with admiration and pity" at this sight of beauty in distress, and then and there, we are told, fell in love—thus showing an appreciation of good looks that was not common with the Georges.

Lady Sarah, who was not fifteen when she went to Court in November, 1759, was indeed, alike according to her portraits and to all contemporary chroniclers, a most lovely girl. "Her beauty is not easily described otherwise than by saying she had the finest complexion, most beautiful hair, and prettiest person that ever was seen, with a sprightly and fine air, a pretty mouth, and remarkably fine teeth, and excess of bloom in her cheeks, little eyes," said her uncle, Henry Fox. "This is not describing her, for her great beauty was a peculiarity of countenance that made her at the same time different from and prettier than any other girl I ever saw."[118] Walpole is quite as enthusiastic about her charms in a letter to George Montagu, written in January, 1761. "There was a play at Holland House, acted by children; not all children, for Lady Sarah Lennox 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; her very awkwardness gave an air of truth to the sham of the part, and the antiquity of the time, kept up by the 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."

After the death of his grandfather, George III made no effort to hide the state of his feelings. Of course, the Princess Dowager came to know of her son's attachment to Lady Sarah, and she and Lord Bute were aghast at the notion of the King marrying the girl, for such an alliance would be even more fatal to their influence on the young monarch than the frustrated union with a princess of the House of Brunswick, since in this case they would have to contend, not only against the power of a fascinating bride, but also against the intrigues of such an astute politician as Henry Fox, who had everything to gain by excluding them from the King's councils. On the other hand, Fox, his hand strengthened by the fact that the laws of England do not forbid the sovereign to mate with a subject, did all he could to promote the union that must benefit him. So while the principals in that love affair played their parts, behind them was a bitter fight that was not the less severe because it could not come to open warfare.

Fox was careful that his niece, Lady Sarah, should stay at Holland House so long as the King was in town, but discreetly himself went from time to time to his house at Kingsgate in the Isle of Thanet, very wisely realizing that the strongest card in his hand was the charm of the young girl. "Though Fox went himself to bathe in the sea, and possibly even to disguise his intrigues," Walpole wrote in 1761, "he left Lady Sarah at Holland House, where she appeared in a field close to the great road (where the King passed on horseback) in a fancy habit making hay."

The course of true love ran smoothly enough for a while. The King was young and handsome, and Lady Sarah, not averse to be a queen, received his overtures graciously. So far, indeed, had the affair progressed early in 1761, that the King confided his passion to Lady Sarah's friend, Lady Susan Fox Strangways,[119] with whom he had the following guarded conversation:

"You are going into Somersetshire; when do you return?"

"Not before winter, sir, or I don't know how soon in winter."

"Is there nothing will bring you back to town before winter?"

"I don't know of anything."

"Would you not like to see a Coronation?"

"Yes, sir. I hope I should come to see that."

"I hear it's very popular my having put it off.... Won't it be a much finer sight when there is a Queen?"

"To be sure, sir."

"I have had a great many applications from abroad, but I don't like them. I have had none at home: I should like that better.... What do you think of your friend? You know who I mean; don't you think her fittest?"

"Think, sir?"

"I think none so fit."[120]

According to Thomas Pitt, Lady Susan was much embarrassed when the King said, "I have had no applications at home: I should like that better," as, for an instant, she thought he meant her, but her agitation was dissipated when he continued, "I mean your friend, Lady Sarah Lennox. Tell her so, and let me have her answer the next Drawing-room day."[121] Fox, however, makes no allusion to this, and merely records that the King crossed over to Lady Sarah, and told her to ask her friend what he had been saying.

A week later the King asked Lady Sarah if she had heard what he had said, and upon her replying in the affirmative, put the question, "Do you approve?" to which he received as answer only a cross look, whereupon, in high dudgeon, he left the room. This brusque repulse is explained by the fact that Lady Sarah was piqued by her lover, Lord Newbattle,[122] and sought solace by avenging his offence upon her royal suitor. Fox remarked the coolness of the King, and commented, "He has undoubtedly heard of Lord Newbattle and more than is true;" but soon the sovereign's love conquered his dignity, and perhaps a reconciliation was hastened by the news of an accident in the hunting field to Lady Sarah. Lord Newbattle when told she had fractured a leg had said, "It will do no great harm, for her legs were ugly enough before," and this statement, repeated to Lady Sarah, cured her of her attachment to the speaker, and made her more ready, on her recovery, to accede to the King's request to reconsider his proposal.

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

Lady Susan Fox Strangways was more aggrieved than the person chiefly concerned, for, as she remarked humorously, "I almost thought myself Prime Minister"; but Fox was furious, as much at the deception as at the disappointment. "My mother (Lady Sarah) would probably have been vexed," said Henry Napier, "but her favourite squirrel happened to die at the same time, and his loss was more felt than that of a crown."[124] Lady Sarah was not in love with the King, and the shock fell not on her heart but on her vanity. "I did not cry, I assure you, which I believe you will, as I know you were set upon it that I was," she wrote on July 7, 1761, to Lady Susan. "The thing I am most angry at is looking so like a fool, as I shall for having gone so often for nothing, but I don't much care; if he was to change his mind again (which can't be though), and not give me a very good reason for his conduct, I would not have him, for if he is so weak as to be governed by everybody, I shall have but a bad time of it." She certainly had reason to complain of the King's conduct, and, after referring to his "mighty kind speeches and looks," this she did to the same correspondent. "Even last Thursday, the day after the orders [for the Council] were come out," she wrote, "the hypocrite had the face to come up and speak to me with all the good humour in the world, and seemed to want to speak to me but was afraid.... He must have sent to this woman [Princess Charlotte] before you went out of town, then what business had he to begin again? In short, his behaviour is that of a man who has neither sense, good nature, nor honesty."[125]

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

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

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

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

That the King never forgot Lady Sarah Lennox is certain. When at the theatre he saw Mrs. Pope, who much resembled Lady Sarah, he fell into a reverie, and, forgetful of the Queen and other persons in his box, mused: "She is like Lady Sarah still"; while Princess Elizabeth told Lady Louisa Stuart, "Do you know papa says she (Princess Mary) will be like Lady Sarah Bunbury, who was the prettiest woman he ever saw in his life." Lady Sarah was well content with her lot, and, as is well known, made in 1762 "a match of her own choice" with the sporting baronet, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, and, when this union was dissolved in 1781, married the Hon. George Napier,[130] and became the mother of eight children, two of whom, William and Charles, attained distinction as, respectively, the historian of the Peninsular War and the conqueror of Scinde.[131] But we have no concern here with the later years of Lady Sarah, save to remark that she never regretted the loss of the brilliant position to which she so nearly attained. "I declare that I have for years reverenced the Queen's name, and admired the judgment of Providence in placing so exalted a character in a station where my miserable one would have been a disgrace!" she wrote in 1789 to Lady Susan O'Brien. "And now I still affirm the judgment of Providence is always right, but I see she was chosen to punish the poor King's faults by her ambitions and conduct instead of me by my faults, and I still rejoice I was never Queen, and so I shall to my life's end; for, at the various events in it, I have regularly catechised myself upon that very point, and I always preferred my own situation, sometimes happy, sometimes miserable, to what it would have been had that event ever taken place." One other quotation from a letter from Lady Sarah to the same correspondent may perhaps be allowed. "I am one who will keep the King's marriage-day with unfeigned joy and gratitude to Heaven that I am not in her Majesty's place! It was the happiest day for me, in as much [as] I like to attend my dear sick husband better than a King. I like my sons better than I like the royal sons, thinking them better animals, and more likely to give me comfort in my old age; and I like better to be a subject, than subject to the terrors of royalty in these days of trouble. It's pleasant to have lived to be satisfied of the great advantages of a lot which in those days I might have deemed unlucky. Ideas of fifteen and sixty one cannot well assimilate; but mine began at fourteen, for if you remember I was not near fifteen when my poor head began to be turned by adulation, in consequence of my supposed favour. In the year 1759, on the late Princess of Wales's birthday, November 30, I ought to have been in my nursery, and I shall ever think it was unfair to bring me into the world while a child. Au reste, I am delighted to hear the King is so well, for I am excessively partial to him. I always consider him as an old friend that has been in the wrong; but does one love one's friend less for being in the wrong even towards oneself? I don't, and I would not value the friendship of those who measure friendship by my deservings. God help me if all my friends thought thus."[132]