THE ROYAL FAMILY

The troubles of George III were not exclusively the result of his incursions into politics, for he had much worry in connexion with most of his brothers and sisters, sometimes through their fault and sometimes through the circumstances in which they were placed. Exclusive of his heir, Frederick, Prince of Wales, left behind him six children. His youngest son, Frederick William, died in 1765 at the age of fifteen; "an amiable youth and the most promising, it was thought, of the family. The hereditary disorder in his blood had fallen on his lungs and turned to a consumption."[122] A daughter, Louisa Anne, fell a victim to the same disease three years later; but this was a happy release, for, afflicted with bodily disease from her infancy, she was so remarkably small for her age that though she had completed her nineteenth year, she looked like a child of about thirteen.[123] There remained the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and Cumberland, and the Princesses Augusta and Caroline Matilda.

The Princes probably inherited from their father a love of pleasure, and this had doubtless been quickened by the restrictions imposed upon them when they were in the custody of the Princess Dowager. She kept them in such rigid durance that when Prince Henry, a lively lad, was asked if he had been confined with the epidemic cold, he replied: "Confined, that I am, but without any cold." It was, therefore, only to be expected that as soon as the boys could escape from leading-strings, they would kick over the traces, and plunge gaily and unthinkingly into all the pleasures that await princes in this world.

Edward Augustus, afterwards Duke of York, as the eldest of the brothers, was the first to secure his liberty. "Sir Charles [Hanbury Williams]'s daughter, Lady Essex,[124] has engaged the attention of Prince Edward, who has got his liberty, seems extremely disposed to use it, and has great life and good-humour; she has already made a ball for him," Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann in January, 1757, when the Prince was eighteen; and soon William Henry, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, made their bow to society, and became much in evidence. "Every place is like one of Shakespeare's plays: Enter the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and attendants."

The Duke of York was of an amorous disposition and at an early age had love passages with the Duchess of Richmond,[125] with Lady Stanhope,[126] and with the Countess of Tyrconnel, of the last of whom Wraxall has left a description: "my particular acquaintance, feminine and delicate as her figure, very fair, with a profusion of light hair."[127] The Duke was further said to be engaged to that Lady Mary Coke of whom Lady Temple wrote:

And Lady Mary was said to have taken his intentions so seriously that now and then, in the belief that she was married to him, she signed her name like a royal personage.[128] "The Duke of York has £3,000 a year added to his income, which makes it £15,000," said Lady Sarah Lennox in December, 1764. "He is in great spirits and has begun giving balls." He drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs, but found death in the pleasant draught. He went abroad in 1767, caught cold at a ball given by the Duc de Villars at his country seat, and, refusing to take care of himself, became ill, and died at Monaco on September 17.

"His immoderate pursuit of pleasure and unremitted fatigues in travelling beyond his strength, succeeded without interruption by balls and entertainments, had thrown his blood, naturally distempered and full of humours, into a state that brought on a putrid and irresistible fever," Walpole wrote. "He suffered considerably, but with a heroism becoming a great Prince. Before he died he wrote a penitential letter to the King (though, in truth, he had no faults but what his youth made pardonable), and tenderly recommended his servants to him. The Prince of Monaco, though his favourite child was then under inoculation at Paris, remained with and waited on him to his last breath, omitting nothing that tenderness could supply or his royal birth demand. The Duke of York had lately passed some time in the French Court, and by the quickness of his replies, by his easy frankness, and (in him) unusual propriety of conduct, had won much on the affection of the King of France, and on the rest of the Court, though his loose and perpetually rolling eyes, his short sight, and the singular whiteness of his hair, which, the French said, resembled feathers, by no means bespoke prejudice in his favour. His temper was good, his generosity royal, and his parts not defective: but his inarticulate loquacity and the levity of his conduct, unsupported by any countenance from the King, his brother, had conspired to place him but low in the estimation of his countrymen. As he could obtain no credit from the King's unfeeling nature, he was in a situation to do little good; as he had been gained by the Opposition, he might have done hurt—at least so much to the King that his death was little lamented. Nor can we judge whether more years and experience would have corrected his understanding or corrupted his heart, nor whether, which is most probable, they would not have done both."[129]

The Duke of York was foolish and dissipated, and though Mr. Cole says, "I have been told that his private conversation was as weak and low as his person was contemptible," he was not without good qualities, and it is difficult to quarrel with Sir George Trevelyan, who, speaking of the sons of Frederick, Prince of Wales, says, "Death gradually thinned the illustrious group, carrying off princes whom the world pronounced hopeful and promising in exact proportion as they died young."[130] Certainly the Duke of York compares favourably with the two brothers who survived him.

"The Duke of Gloucester is following his [the Duke of York's] steps, and has supped at Lady Harrington's and trots about like anything," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien on December 16, 1764; and, in due course, the Duke of Cumberland, emancipated from maternal control, entered upon his unedifying career as a man about town. There was, however, a marked difference between the brothers. The elder was, according to Walpole, who did not usually present an agreeable picture of a member of the royal family, "reserved, serious, pious, of the most decent and sober deportment, and possessing a plain understanding, though of no brilliance," and the same authority adds that "an honorable amour which totally engrossed him preserved him from the irregularities into which his brothers Edward and Henry fell."[131]

The honourable amour to which Walpole alludes was the Duke's attachment to Maria, the widow of James, second Earl of Waldegrave. Lady Waldegrave was a natural daughter of Sir Edward Walpole by Mrs. Clements, a milliner, and so was a niece of the famous letter-writer, who took the greatest interest in her welfare. After the death of her first husband in 1763, she was still a reigning beauty, and was besieged with offers of marriage including one from "the greatest match of the day," the Duke of Portland. She refused all her suitors, and her name began to be coupled with that of the Duke of Gloucester.[132] "The report of this week is that the King has forbid the Duke of Gloucester to speak to his pretty widow; the truth is that she is gone out of town, but more 'tis difficult to know," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote on March 8, 1766. "He has given her five pearl bracelets that cost £500—that's not for nothing surely?"[133]

Perturbed by the scandal that was being circulated, Lady Waldegrave consulted her uncle, who advised her not to see the Duke again, whereupon she wrote to the latter a touching letter, in which she stated that while she was too inconsiderable a person to aspire to his hand, she was of too much consequence to become his mistress, and that therefore the intercourse between them must cease. After the lapse of a fortnight the intimacy was renewed, and Walpole, who knew his niece's character, felt confident that a marriage took place. This, indeed, was the case, for the Duke and Lady Waldegrave were secretly married on September 6, 1766, although it was not publicly announced until June, 1772, and not even Sir Edward Walpole was informed until May 19.

"My dear and ever honoured sir," the Duchess wrote to her father on May 19, 1772, "you cannot easily imagine how much every past affliction has been increased to me by my not being at liberty to make you quite easy. The duty to a husband being superior to that we owe a father, I hope will plead my pardon, and that instead of blaming my past reserve, you will think it commendable. When the Duke of Gloucester married me (which was in September, 1766), I promised him upon no consideration in the world to own it, even to you, without his permission, which I never had till yesterday, when he arrived here in much better health and looks, better than ever I saw him, yet, as you may suppose much hurt at all that passed in his absence; so much so that I had the greatest difficulty to prevail on him to let things as much as possible remain as they are. To secure my character, without injuring his, is the utmost of my wishes, and I daresay that you and all my relations will agree with me that I shall be much happier to be called Lady Waldegrave and respected as Duchess of Gloucester than to feel myself the cause of his leading such a life as his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, does, in order to be called your royal highness. I am prepared for the sort of abuse the newspapers will be full of. Very few people will believe that a woman will refuse to be called princess if it is in her power. To have the power is my pride, and not using it in some measure pays the debt I owe the Duke for the honour he has done me. All that I wish of my relations is that they will show the world that they are satisfied with my conduct, yet seem to disguise the reason. If ever I am unfortunate enough to be called the Duchess of Gloucester, there is an end of almost all the comforts which I now enjoy, which, if things go on as they are now, are many." It was this letter that drew from Horace Walpole the most sincere commendation, perhaps, that he ever bestowed: "I have always thought that feeling bestows the most sublime eloquence, and that women write better letters than men. I, a writer in some esteem, and all my life a letter-writer, never penned anything like this letter of my niece. How mean did my prudence appear, compared with hers, which was void of all personal considerations but her honour."

While the Duke of Gloucester was engaged in the courtship and marriage of Lady Waldegrave, the Duke of Cumberland was spending the years in riotous living. Scandals clustered thick around his name, and his pursuit and conquest of Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor, resulted in an action by her husband for crim. con., in which he was awarded £10,000 damages. The Duke, unable to pay this sum which with law-costs amounted to £13,000, was obliged to seek aid from his brother, the King, who was horrified at least as much by the attack upon his purse as at the affair itself. He had, however, no choice but to find means to settle the claim.

Richmond Lodge, November 5, 1770.

Lord North,—A subject of a most private and delicate kind obliges me to lose no time in acquainting you that my two brothers have this day applied to me on the difficulty that the folly of the younger has drawn him into; the affair is too public for you to doubt but that it regards the lawsuit; the time will expire this day seven-night, when he must pay the damages and the other expenses attending it. He has taken no one step to raise the money, and now has applied to me as the only means by which he can obtain it, promising to repay it in a year and a half; I therefore promised to write to you, though I saw great difficulty in you finding so large a sum as thirteen thousand pounds in so short a time; but their pointing out to me that the prosecutor would certainly force the House, which would at this licentious time occasion disagreeable reflections on the rest of his family as well as on him. I shall speak more fully to you on this subject on Wednesday, but the time is so short that I did not choose to delay opening this affair till then; besides, I am not fond of taking persons on delicate affairs unprepared; whatever can be done ought to be done; and I ought as little as possible to appear in so very improper a business.

George R.

"I cannot enough express how much I feel at being in the least concerned in an affair that my way of thinking has ever taught me to behold as highly improper; but I flatter myself the truths I have thought it incumbent to utter may be of some use in his future conduct," George III had written after the Grosvenor episode became known to him; but he placed too much reliance upon his powers of persuasion, for, the Duke's connexion with Lady Grosvenor not enduring, he was soon engaged in other intrigues,[134] the most notable and enduring of which was that with Lady Anne Horton,[135] a woman of great beauty. "This lady, like every member of her family, by no means wanted talents; but they were more specious than solid—better calculated for show than for use, for captivating admiration than for exciting esteem," Wraxall has written. "Her personal charms, allowance being made for the injury they had sustained from time—for in 1786 she was no longer young—fully justified the Duke's passion. No woman of her time performed the honours of her drawing-room with more affability, ease, and dignity." Horace Walpole, too, has left a description of her charms. "There was something so bewitching in her languishing eyes, which she could animate to enchantment if she pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied, and yet so habitual, that it was difficult not to see through it, and yet as difficult to resist it. She danced divinely, and had a great deal of wit, but of the satiric kind; and as she had haughtiness before her rise, no wonder she claimed all the observances due to her rank, after she became Duchess of Cumberland."[136]

The Duke of Cumberland did not attempt to conceal his marriage, and according to some accounts, he informed the King in a curt note from abroad during his honeymoon, though another, and more probable, version declares that he went to the King, and walking with him in the garden gave him a letter. "The King took it, saying he supposed he need not read it now. 'Yes, sir,' said the Duke, 'you must read it directly.' On doing so his Majesty broke out into the most violent language, addressing his brother as 'You fool! You blockhead!' and declaring that 'this woman could be nothing and never should be anything to him.' He then told the Duke to go abroad. This led to an open breach."[137]

The King was so angry that he determined forthwith to put a stop to these clandestine marriages, and in February, 1772, sent a message to Parliament, introducing the Royal Marriage Act, the main object of which was to prohibit the marriage of any descendant of George II, unless a foreigner, marrying without the consent of the sovereign. "I am much pleased with the draft of the message, and with that of the Bill for preventing marriages in the royal family without the previous consent of the Crown, except the issue of princesses that have or may be married into foreign families," George wrote to Lord North on February 4, 1772; but just about this time came terrible news from Denmark about the English princess who had married the king of that country.

"The most hardened men of the world confessed to being shocked when, with such news barely three weeks old, the wretched Caroline's brother invited his Parliament to consider a scheme of legislation, under which British princesses might have to choose between a lifetime of celibacy, and an ill-assorted union like that which just then was dissolving amidst a scene of blood and misery such as could be paralleled only in the imagination of the dramatist."[138] Though the Bill was introduced by the express direction of the King, not one of the ministers wished to identify himself with it. "One thing remarkable is that the King has not a servant in the line of business in either House, except the Chief Justice of the King's Bench [Mansfield] can be called so, who will own the Bill, or who has refrained from every public insinuation against it, as much as can come from those who vote for it, from considerations declared to be of another nature,"[139] wrote the Earl of Shelburne on March 15, 1772, to Chatham, who pronounced the measure "newfangled and impudent." Still the Royal Marriage Act passed the Lords without serious opposition, and it was brought to the Commons on March 4. There it had to contend against a strong feeling.

"I think it is the wickedest Act in the Statute Book. It was brought forward to gratify the late Queen's pride, to protect her from the mortification of having the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave and Mrs. Horton raised to the rank of her sisters-in-law," Nicholls said. "It was well said of some persons, while this Bill was depending in Parliament, that the title of the Bill should be 'An Act to encourage Fornications and Adultery in the descendants of George II.'"[140]

The original bill stipulated that the sovereign's consent must be obtained whatever the age of the prince or princess, but in the Lower House this clause was altered so as to make the consent of the sovereign necessary until the royal personage desirous to marry should have reached the age of twenty-six, after which the union might take place unless objected to by Parliament, to which one year's notice of the proposed alliance must be given. Even with this modification, there was much opposition, but the King was resolved that the bill should become law. "I do expect every nerve to be strained to carry the bill through both Houses with a becoming firmness, for it is not a question that immediately relates to administration, but personally to myself, and therefore I have a right to expect a hearty support from every one in my service, and shall remember defaulters,"[141] George wrote to Lord North; but in spite of this expression of opinion, while the second reading passed by 268 to 140, the figures on the third reading showed only a majority of eighteen, the exact number of votes that had negatived an amendment to limit the operation of the bill to the reign of George III and three years longer. Burke denounced the measure, and Fox resigned his office so as to be free to oppose it; and their attitude was shared by the public at large.