A Queen on Trial E-Book

E. A. Smith

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 535

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Chronicling as it does the breakdown of George IV's marriage to his loathed cousin Caroline, and his futile attempt to divorce her and deprive her of her royal rights and status, A Queen on Trial throws up fascinating parallels with Diana and Charles' acrimonious separation and comes as a timely reminder of the cyclical, repetitive nature of history.

Leseprobe

A QUEEN ON TRIAL

A QUEEN ON TRIAL

THE AFFAIR OF QUEEN CAROLINE

E.A. SMITH

This book was first published in 1993 by Sutton Publishing Limited

This edition first published in 2005

Reprinted in 2014 by

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port,

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved

© The Estate of E.A. Smith 1993, 2005, 2014

The right of E.A. Smith to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied , reproduced, transferred, distributed. leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 An Unsuitable Bride

2 Caroline Claims her Rights

3 The Queen and the People

4 ‘The Die is Cast’

5 ‘Accusation in Thunder’

6 The Queen and the Women of Britain

7 The Queen’s Defence

8 The Queen Triumphant

9 The Queen Rejected

Epilogue: The End of the Affair

List of Sources

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the following owners of copyright for permission to include extracts from the works specified in this book:

The Cambridge University Press for The Letters of T.B. Macaulay, ed. T. Pinney, vol. 1, 1974; The Macmillan Press Ltd for The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot 1820–1832, ed. F. Bamford and the Duke of Wellington, vol. 1, 1950; John Murray (Publishers) for The Letters of Lady Palmerston, ed. Tresham Lever, 1957, and Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich 1820–1826, ed. P. Quennell 1937.

I am also grateful to Mrs Elizabeth Berry for her unfailingly efficient and heroic secretarial services. Above all, I am as always indebted to my wife Virginia for the inspiration, encouragement, and criticism which have done so much to bring this book into being. Her contribution to its origins and its final shape has been immeasurable, and has added greatly to my enjoyment in writing it.

Illustration nos 3, 4 and 5 are reproduced from the Royal Collection, by gracious permission of HM the Queen; 1, 6, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 31, 32 and 35 by courtesy of the Public Record Office (Treasury Solicitor’s papers); 2, 8, 23, 26, 33, 36, 39 and 40 by courtesy of the University of Reading; 9, 10 and 19 by courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery; 14 by courtesy of the Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton; 16 and 30 by courtesy of Dr P.J. Jupp. Nos 28 and 29 are from prints in the author’s collection.

PREFACE

ing George IV’s abortive attempt to divorce his wife, Caroline, in the summer and autumn of 1820 is one of the best-known and most scandalous chapters in the history of the British throne. Whether or not she was in fact guilty of adultery with her Italian chamberlain and servant Pergami (or Bergami) was never precisely proved, though the evidence against her was circumstantially strong. It is also a strong possibility that she had lovers in England after her separation from her husband, then the Prince of Wales, which took place only a short time after their marriage in 1795. George Canning and Sir Thomas Lawrence were among those named and suspected at the time. During the twenty-five years of their separation she and the Prince lived separate lives and went their own ways. The Prince himself was known to have had several mistresses, and indeed had married Maria Fitzherbert ten years before his wedding to Caroline, though that previous marriage was regarded as unlawful because it infringed the Royal Marriage Act. As Mrs Fitzherbert was a Roman Catholic it would, if avowed, have endangered the Prince’s right of succession to the throne, so it was always kept a secret from the world at large. Bigamy was not the Prince’s only iniquity; he consorted with a succession of mistresses and was generally considered to be no better, morally, than his legal wife. Together with his selfish extravagance with public money and the responsibility which, as Prince Regent, he bore for the distressed state of the country after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, this made him for a time the most despised and unpopular of Britain’s rulers. He hardly dared to go out into the streets of his own capital for fear of insult from his subjects, and he was pilloried by the Press and in innumerable cartoons and caricatures, often of the most obscene kind.

It was no wonder, then, that when he became king in January 1820 and immediately tried to deny his wife the title and status of queen, the people at large, and especially in London, adopted her as their heroine, as a persecuted woman who, if not entirely innocent, was certainly no worse than he was. Her appearance in England in June sparked off a series of demonstrations, addresses, cartoons and other manifestations of popular feeling that even seemed to endanger the stability of the throne and the peace of the country. Only a few weeks before, a group of conspirators had plotted to murder the entire Cabinet at dinner – the ‘Cato Street conspiracy’ – and the political radicals who had been vociferous since before the end of the war were clamouring for measures to end the distress of the people by reducing taxes and conceding parliamentary reform. Queen Caroline provided them with a symbol of persecuted innocence and an instrument to use against an unpopular regime. She was adopted by the Radicals in London, led by men such as Alderman Matthew Wood, a former Lord Mayor, William Cobbett the popular journalist, and other leading figures. Her so-called ‘trial’, the proceedings in the House of Lords on the bill to divorce her which the King forced on his ministers, became the centre of the Radicals’ campaign to discredit the monarchy and the government. It marked the apogee of the success of the early nineteenth-century Radical movement: never was it so popular as when personified by the picture of an injured woman, the victim of a worthless monarch and a corrupt government. It also engendered a new, if temporary, phenomenon, of feminist agitation, for the Queen’s plight highlighted the male-dominated nature of society and the injustice of the law towards women’s rights. In all these respects the affair of Queen Caroline was a crucial episode in English history, and if in the end it all came to nothing it had raised issues and aroused passions which could never entirely be hidden away again.

This book is modelled on the format of my work Reform or Revolution? A Diary of Reform in England, 1830–32, published by Alan Sutton in 1992. It tells the story of the tumultuous months of the second half of 1820 through the experiences and recollections of those who took part in or witnessed the events and scenes of the time. It thus provides an immediacy of view which helps us to understand the reaction of the people of the time and to appreciate how events appeared as they unfolded and without knowledge of how it was to end. The final revelation that, despite it all, the monarchy and the constitution survived, proving stronger than the effects of temporary crisis, may also have a lesson for the present day in showing that the historic institutions of Britain are more firmly and deeply rooted in popular affection than the passing moment sometimes suggests.

ONE

AN UNSUITABLE BRIDE

aroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was born on 17 May 1768, the second daughter of Duke Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Princess Augusta, daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales and sister to King George III of England. Brought up in a minor German princely court, she lacked and never acquired the refined social graces and manners of the highest society of Paris or London. The Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel court was described as ‘one of the gayest in Germany’ with little of the ‘stiff etiquette’ characteristic of the other north German courts. At the age of fourteen Caroline was described as ‘a lively, pretty child with light coloured hair hanging in curls on her neck, with rosebud lips from which it seemed that none but sweet words could flow, and always simply and modestly dressed’. By her twenties, however, she had a reputation as something of a flirt and was notorious for her unbridled and sometimes indecent conversation in public company. It was said that her parents forbade her to speak to anyone but her governess lest she should shock those about her, and that her generally ‘indecent conduct’ had led to a ban on all amusements. Whether because of this reputation or not, by the age of twenty-six she was still unmarried, nor was she even attached to any suitor. Her person was not particularly attractive. It was said that neither she nor her underclothes were often washed. As one English historian baldly put it, ‘she swore like an ostler and smelt like a farmyard’.

No less suitable bride could be imagined for the fastidious, fashionable and cultivated George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George III and leader of the beau monde – ‘the first gentleman of Europe’. Yet on the evening of Wednesday 8 April 1795 they were married in the Chapel Royal at St James’s at a glittering ceremony, the bride dressed in white silver tissue, richly ornamented with jewels, with a coronet and a royal robe of crimson velvet bordered with ermine. Her bridesmaids wore white satin, with head-dresses of ostrich feathers. The King, Queen and other members of the numerous royal family were present, and Caroline chatted animatedly to those around her. Yet, as Lady Maria Stuart, who was present at the drawing-room which followed, remarked, it was ‘an odd wedding’. The bridegroom, in fact, appeared to be the worse for drink and had to be supported by his two groomsmen, the Dukes of Bedford and Roxburghe. He ‘looked like death’, Lord Malmesbury commented, and ‘had manifestly had recourse to wine or spirits’. His eyes were not upon his bride but on Lady Jersey, his mistress of the moment – not that he was capable of any more than glancing at any woman, for, according to his wife’s later account, after taking a great deal more liquor at the supper which was held at Buckingham House, he arrived with his bride at his residence, Carlton House in Pall Mall, in a state of alcoholic helplessness, collapsed on the floor of the bridal bedchamber and spent the wedding night insensible.

The reasons for the Prince’s unforgivable – and ever afterwards unforgiven – conduct lay in his own disreputable past. As a youth he was wayward and undisciplined, attracted to women of all kinds and to every dissipation that London could offer, with companions as notorious as he became. In reaction against the strict upbringing he endured in the oppressive and moralistic court of his parents he and his brothers pursued pleasure without restraint. At the age of eighteen, Horace Walpole wrote, he and his brother the Duke of York ‘drank hard, swore, & passed every night in brothels. Such was the fruit of his being locked up in the Palace of Piety. . . . He passed the nights in the lowest debaucheries, at the same time bragging of intrigues with women of quality, whom he named publicly.’ In his ’teens his father had to buy off ‘Perdita’ Robinson, the celebrated actress, to whom the Prince had written some indiscreet letters, but nothing restrained his son’s continued dissipations.

Despite these debauched tastes and habits, the Prince showed a passion for the fashionable arts, and became a devotee of every new style in architecture and decoration. He spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in restoring and furnishing his princely residence at Carlton House and later in remodelling in the oriental taste the modest farmhouse which he acquired at Brighton and which was named The Pavilion. Heedless of expense and of his father’s warnings to practise economy – deliberately reacting against his parents’ parsimony and his father’s deep sense of responsibility to the public purse – he spent money like water and was soon head over ears in debt. By 1786 his debts were estimated at no less than a quarter of a million pounds.

The biggest imbroglio of all, however, was his clandestine and (strictly speaking) illegal marriage in 1785 to a respectable Roman Catholic lady, six years his senior and twice widowed, named Maria Fitzherbert. The Prince had pursued her with extravagant ardour almost from the time they first met, but she was a woman of devout principles and she refused to follow the path trodden by so many before her and become his mistress. Yet a marriage to a commoner would never have been permitted by the Prince’s father, and without his consent no marriage would have been legal under the Royal Marriage Act. Even worse, marriage to a Catholic would have excluded the Prince from the succession to the throne under the Act of Settlement.

However, the prince’s infatuation was so desperate that he declared he could not live without Maria. He staged a fake suicide by cutting himself with a sword, and swore to tear off his bandages and bleed to death unless she gave in. Finally, she agreed to a clandestine marriage carried out by an Anglican clergyman bailed from the Fleet prison for the occasion who was promised a bishopric when the Prince became King. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he died before that promise could be redeemed. However, in the eyes of both Anglican and Catholic churches, if not in secular law, it was a valid marriage. It was never publicly admitted, but it was widely suspected and when in 1787 the House of Commons was asked for additional funds to pay off George’s debts veiled threats were made of disclosure. The Prince added to his infamies by persuading his crony Charles James Fox, who did not know the secret, to deny the marriage in the House. When Fox and his political friends discovered the truth they abandoned him for two years. Parliament nevertheless paid off his debts, but his extravagance continued. Five years later his debts had reached £400,000.

In the eyes of the law and of his parents the Prince was still a bachelor, and by 1794, when he was thirty-two years of age, it was high time he was settled into a royal marriage. A Protestant princess, preferably German in accordance with the Hanoverian family’s own ancestry, was the necessary goal, and the Prince’s choice settled on Caroline, who was his first cousin. She believed that his brother the Duke of Clarence, who had met her, recommended her to the Prince, but in truth George cared little who she might be. ‘One damned German Frau is as good as another,’ he is said to have muttered. Lady Salisbury later asserted that Lady Jersey encouraged the match in order to destroy Mrs Fitzherbert’s influence over him ‘and place her on the same footing as his other loves’. The real inducement to marry, however, was the King’s promise to pay his outstanding debts and the prospect of a substantial increase in his allowance from the civil list. The fact that he had never met or even seen his intended bride was not unusual in European royal marriages, which were always arranged for dynastic or diplomatic ends. It was not expected, or required, that the parties should be in love, or even acquainted with each other. The royal marriage market was rather akin to the breeding of pedigree cattle: the purpose was to provide heirs to the thrones of Europe of the requisite stock.

* * *

In the autumn of 1794 James Harris, Lord Malmesbury, a friend of the Prince of Wales, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Part of his task was to discuss future operations in north Germany against Revolutionary France, but the main purpose of his mission was to demand the hand of Caroline, the daughter of the Duke, as a bride for the Prince of Wales. In his diary he recorded his impressions of the future Princess from their first meeting until their arrival in England over four months later, their journey having been delayed by bad weather and by military operations during the war. His concern about the bride’s unsuitability as a partner for the Prince led him to try to educate her in the manners, conduct, and hygiene which would be expected of a young woman in high society and which might make her acceptable to the Prince. She seemed a willing pupil, but her habits were too deeply rooted and her character too frivolous to adopt new ways. Malmesbury’s worst fears were to be realized when she met her future husband for the first time.

Lord Malmesbury’s diary, 1794

Thursday, Nov. 28 [sc. 20th] – . . . The Princess Caroline (Princess of Wales) much embarrassed on my first being presented to her – pretty face – not expressive of softness – her figure not graceful – fine eyes – good hand – tolerable teeth, but going – fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust – short, with what the French call ‘des épaules impertinentes’. Vastly happy with her future expectations . . .

Sunday, Dec. 7. – . . . Another long conversation with the Duke about his daughter: he extremely anxious about her doing right; said he had been with her for two hours in the morning – that he wished to make her feel that the high situation in which she was going to be placed was not simply one of amusement and enjoyment; that it had its duties, and those perhaps difficult and hard to fulfil. He again earnestly entreated me to be her adviser – not to forsake her when in England; that he was more afraid of what would happen there than here; that he dreaded the Prince’s habits. . . . Sat next Princess Caroline at supper; I advise her to avoid familiarity, to have no confidantes, to avoid giving any opinion; to approve, but not to admire excessively; to be perfectly silent on politics and party; to be very attentive and respectful to the Queen; to endeavour, at all events, to be well with her. She takes all this well; she was at times in tears, but on account of having taken leave of some of her old acquaintance. . . .

Tuesday, Dec. 9. . . . She asked me about Lady [Jersey], appeared to suppose her an intriguante, but not to know of any partiality or connection between her and the Prince. . . . She said of her own accord, ‘I am determined never to appear jealous. I know the Prince is léger, and am prepared on this point.’ I said I did not believe she would have any occasion to exercise this very wise resolution, which I commended highly; and entreated her if she saw any symptoms of a goût in the Prince, or if any of the women about her should, under the love of fishing in troubled waters, endeavour to excite a jealousy in her mind, on no account to allow it to manifest itself; that reproaches and sourness never reclaimed anybody; that it only served as an advantageous contrast to the contrary qualities in the rival; and that the surest way of recovering a tottering affection was softness, enduring and caresses; that I knew enough of the Prince to be quite sure he could not withstand such a conduct, while a contrary one would probably make him disagreeable and peevish, and certainly force him to be false and dissembling.

Tuesday, Dec. 16. – . . . At dinner next Princess Caroline . . . She [Caroline] has no fond, no fixed character, a light and flighty mind, but meaning well, and well-disposed; and my eternal theme to her is to think before she speaks, to recollect herself. She says she wishes to be loved by the people; this, I assure her, can only be obtained by making herself respected and rare – that the sentiment of being loved by the people is a mistaken one – that sentiment can only be given to a few, to a narrow circle of those we see every day – that a nation at large can only respect and honour a great Princess, and it is, in fact, these feelings that are falsely denominated the love of a nation: they are not to be procured as the goodwill of individuals is, by pleasant openness and free communication, but by a strict attention to appearances – by never going below the high rank in which a Princess is placed, either in language or manners – by mixing dignity with affability, which, without it, becomes familiarity, and levels all distinction.

Saturday, Dec. 20. – Walk with Sir B. Boothby. We regret the apparent facility of the Princess Caroline’s character – her want of reflection and substance – agree that with a steady man she would do vastly well, but with one of a different description there are great risks. . . .

Sunday, Dec. 28. . . . At dinner I found the Duchess and Princess alarmed, agitated, and uneasy at an anonymous letter from England, abusing the Prince, and warning them in the most exaggerated terms against Lady —, who is represented as the worst and most dangerous of profligate women. The Duchess, with her usual indiscretion, had shown this to the Princess, and mentioned it to everybody. . . . Princess Caroline shows me the anonymous letter about Lady —, evidently written by some disappointed milliner or angry maid-servant, and deserving no attention. . . . I told her Lady — would be more cautious than to risk such an audacious measure; and that, besides, it was death to presume to approach a Princess of Wales, and no man would be daring enough to think of it. She asked me whether I was in earnest. I said such was our law; that anybody who presumed to love her was guilty of high treason, and punished with death, if she was weak enough to listen to him; so also would she. This startled her.

. . . On summing up Princess Caroline’s character today, it came out to my mind to be, that she has quick parts, without a sound or distinguishing understanding; that she has a ready conception but no judgment; caught by the first impression, led by the first impulse; turned away by appearances or enjouement; loving to talk, and prone to confide and make missish friendships that last twenty-four hours. Some natural, but no acquired morality, and no strong innate notions of its value and necessity; warm feelings and nothing to counterbalance them; great good-humour and much good-nature – no appearance of caprice – rather quick and vive, but not a grain of rancour. From her habits, from the life she was allowed and even compelled to live, forced to dissemble; fond of gossiping, and this strengthened greatly by the example of her good mother, who is all curiosity and inquisitiveness, and who has no notion of not gratifying this desire at any price. In short, the Princess in the hands of a steady and sensible man would probably turn out well, but where it is likely she will find faults perfectly analagous to her own, she will fail. She has no governing powers, although her mind is physically strong. She has her father’s courage, but it is to her (as to him) of no avail. He wants mental decision; she character and tact.

Sunday, Jan. 18 [Osnabruck] . . . Queen’s birthday – gala – great dinner . . . Princess Caroline very missish at supper. I much fear these habits are irrevocably rooted in her; she is naturally curious, and a gossip – she is quick and observing, and she has a silly pride of finding out everything – she thinks herself particularly acute in discovering likings, and this leads her at times to the most improper remarks and conversation. I am determined to take an opportunity of correcting her, coute qu’il coute.

Wednesday, Feb. 18. – . . . Argument with the Princess about her toilette. She piques herself on dressing quick; I disapprove this. She maintains her point; I however desire Madame Busche to explain to her that the Prince is very delicate, and that he expects a long and very careful toilette de propreté, of which she has no idea. On the contrary, she neglects it sadly, and is offensive from this neglect. Madame Busche executes her commission well, and the Princess comes out the next day well washed all over.

March 6. . . . I had two conversations with Princess Caroline. One on the toilette, on cleanliness, and on delicacy of speaking. On these points I endeavoured, as far as was possible for a man, to inculcate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of dress, as well as to what was hid, as to what was seen. (I knew she wore coarse petticoats, coarse shifts, and thread stockings, and these never well washed, or changed often enough). I observed that a long toilette was necessary, and gave her no credit for boasting that hers was a ‘short’ one. What I could not say myself on this point, I got said through women; through Madame Busche, and afterwards through Mrs Harcourt. It is remarkable how amazingly on this point her education has been neglected, and how much her mother, although an Englishwoman, was inattentive to it. . . . The Princess felt all this, and it made a temporary impression; but in this as on all other subjects, I have had but too many opportunities to observe that her heart is very, very light, unsusceptible of strong or lasting feelings. In some respects this may make her happier, but certainly not better.

Sunday, April 5. . . . we arrived and were set down at St James’s (the Duke of Cumberland’s apartments, Cleveland Row) about half-past two.

I immediately notified the arrival to the King and Prince of Wales; the last came immediately. I, according to the established etiquette, introduced (no one else being in the room) the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly, in consequence of my saying to her it was the right mode of proceeding, attempted to kneel to him. He raised her (gracefully enough) and embraced her, said barely one word, turned round, returned to a distant part of the apartment, and calling me to him, said, ‘Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.’ I said, ‘Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?’ – upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath, ‘No; I will go directly to the Queen;’ and away he went. The Princess, left during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, on my joining her, said, ‘Mon Dieu! est ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela? Je le trouve très gros, et nullement aussi beau que son portrait.’ I said His Royal Highness was naturally a good deal affected and flurried at this first interview, but she certainly would find him different at dinner. She was disposed to further criticizing on this occasion, which would have embarrassed me very much to answer, if luckily the King had not ordered me to attend him.

The drawing-room was just over. His Majesty’s conversation turned wholly on Prussian and French politics; and the only question about the Princess was, ‘Is she good-humoured?’ I said, and very truly, that in very trying moments, I had never seen her otherwise. The King said, ‘I am glad of it;’ and it was manifest, from his silence, he had seen the Queen since she had seen the Prince, and that the Prince had made a very unfavourable report of the Princess to her. At dinner . . . I was far from satisfied with the Princess’s behaviour; it was flippant, rattling, affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse vulgar hints about Lady [Jersey], who was present, and though mute, le diable n’en perdait rien. The Prince was evidently disgusted; and this unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the Princess had not the talent to remove; but, by still observing the same giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased till it became positive hatred. . . .

The marriage ceremony on 8 April passed off without undue incident, though it was noticed that the Archbishop of Canterbury paused meaningfully at the passage concerning the disclosure of ‘any lawful impediment’ and twice repeated the passage which abjured the Prince ‘to live from that time in nuptial fidelity with his consort’. The wedding night was hardly even an anti-climax: rather it was a fitting prelude to the honeymoon, in which the Prince openly neglected his wife. She later alleged that during their stay at a rented house near Basingstoke the only other woman present was Lady Jersey and that the rest of the party were all ‘very blackguard companions of the Prince’s, who were constantly drunk and filthy, sleeping & snoring in bouts on the sofas . . . & the whole resembled a bad brothel much more than a palace’.

The Prince had, however, managed to perform one duty. By the time they moved to Brighton two months after the ceremony the Princess was pregnant – rather to her surprise, for she hinted to Malmesbury that she thought him incapable. Their child, christened Charlotte after the Queen, was born in January 1796 – nine months to the day after their wedding – to the joy and satisfaction of the Prince’s parents. The Prince himself, however, was unreconciled to his wife and two days after Charlotte was born, in a state of almost nervous hysteria, he wrote out a long, rambling will leaving all his personal property to his ‘beloved & adored Maria Fitzherbert’, his only true and adored wife, and demanding that Caroline should in no way be concerned with the education, care, or upbringing of their daughter: even his wife’s jewels, given to her by him, were to be passed to Charlotte while to Caroline herself, ‘her who is call’d the Princess of Wales I leave one shilling’.

After further quarrels and humiliations, Caroline confronted her husband at Carlton House in December 1797 and declared that she would no longer obey him – she had not truly been his wife for nearly two and a half years – and she retired to a rented house at Blackheath, leaving her daughter in the Prince’s care. They never lived under the same roof again, and in 1799 he persuaded Maria Fitzherbert to resume their relationship.

Caroline did not retire from society after her separation from the Prince. She set up almost an alternative court at Blackheath, where she resided for sixteen years. She entertained lavishly, being visited by a variety of ‘remarkable persons’, as one lord remarked, notable in the arts and sciences, politics and the law. She entertained men from both sides of the political world, from Pitt and Canning to Charles Grey, and some of them were rumoured to be her lovers. In the case of Canning in particular that seems to have been true, which was to be an embarrassment to him in 1820 when he was a member of the government which brought in the bill to divorce her on the grounds of her alleged immoralities. Rumours about her sexual conduct quickly spread, and in 1802 she was alleged to be pregnant again; indeed, she herself foolishly pretended to be so, and her friend Lady Douglas was to allege that a boy child named William was born to the Queen early in 1803. The child seems in fact to have been abandoned by his real mother, a Mrs Austin, a poor woman from Deptford, and adopted by Caroline as a focus for her thwarted motherly instincts. When, however, Caroline quarrelled with the Douglases, they sought to blackmail her by making allegations about the child, which they fed to the Prince and to London society in the winter of 1805–6. The outcome was the so-called and rather inappropriately named ‘Delicate Investigation’ by a commission of Cabinet ministers who dredged through the scandals and allegations of everything from adultery with men such as Thomas Lawrence, the painter, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, and Captain Thomas Manby RN, to lesbianism. The commission concluded that the story about the Princess’s illegitimate child was false, that there was no evidence of actual adultery, but that her conduct in general ‘must . . . give occasion to very unfavourable interpretations’. The Cabinet recommended that, while the King might continue to receive her at court, he should warn her about her general conduct. The Prince was furious, for he had been hoping for evidence which would allow him to divorce her. She had obviously been sexually promiscuous, but there was no firm proof.

In addition, Caroline’s affairs now became a source of political contention. Her defence was taken up by the opposition, led by Spencer Perceval and Canning; after the change of government in 1807, they were replaced as the Princess’s defenders by the former ministers, now in opposition, who had investigated her conduct the previous year. Caroline’s full defence against the allegations was composed by Perceval in 1806 under the title of ‘The Book’, though the change of ministry prevented its publication. Nevertheless, the affair redounded to the discredit of both the Princess and her apparently cuckolded husband, who, however, had an even stronger track record of immoral conduct. The general opinion was that, though Caroline was no better than she should be, she had been scurvily treated by her dissolute and selfish husband and as his popularity waned, hers correspondingly advanced. The foundations were being laid for the public reaction in her favour and against George IV in the affair of 1820.

In the meantime, the upbringing and education of Princess Charlotte added further tensions between her parents. The Prince insisted on full control of his daughter and the total exclusion of her mother, from whose bad influence she was to be protected. His dictatorial attitude, however, alienated Charlotte, who was naturally fond of her mother and equally headstrong and volatile in temperament. She resented the barriers raised between her and her mother, and in 1812–13 when the Prince again attempted to expose Caroline’s conduct and ‘The Book’ was published to provide full details of her alleged crimes, Charlotte was angry with her father. It was also feared that the Prince’s renewed campaign was intended to lead to divorce, remarriage, and possibly the birth of a legitimate son who would take Charlotte’s place as heir apparent. George’s attempt to marry Charlotte off to the Prince of Orange and to send her to live in Holland was seen as further evidence of a desire to remove her from rival political influence at home. Charlotte refused to marry her father’s choice of suitor and demanded an independent establishment; but her prospects were diminished when Caroline decided in 1814 to leave England and travel to the continent, where she spent the next six years in, it was to be alleged, a series of immoral liaisons with menial servants in a kind of exotic travelling circus of pretended oriental splendour. Charlotte’s death in 1817 meanwhile increased the pressure on the Prince and his royal brothers to produce another heir to the throne. Caroline’s conduct was accordingly the subject of another ministerial enquiry in 1818, when a special commission (known as the Milan Commission) investigated rumours about her alleged immoralities in Italy. No conclusive evidence was found but George continued to press his ministers on the subject and in the summer of 1819 the following exchanges took place.

Minute of Cabinet, 17 June 1819

Your Royal Highness’s confidential servants having fully considered the paper which your Royal Highness has been graciously pleased to refer to them, beg leave humbly to submit it as their opinion that it appears to them to be quite clear that a divorce between your Royal Highness and the Princess of Wales never could be accomplished by arrangement, nor obtained except upon proof of adultery, to be substantiated by evidence before some tribunal in this country; and such a proceeding could not, in the judgment of your Royal Highness’s servants, be instituted without serious hazard to the interests and peace of the kingdom.

On the other hand, the separation which already exists between your Royal Highness and the Princess of Wales might be rendered complete, the scandal in the eyes of Europe effectually removed, and other eventual inconveniences obviated, by some arrangement upon the principles suggested in the paper referred to by them. But your Royal Highness’s servants cannot advise your Royal Highness to entertain such an arrangement unless the proposition, and the terms of it, were distinctly stated to originate on the part of the Princess of Wales, and to be sanctioned by her authority.

The Prince Regent to the Prime Minister, the Earl of Liverpool

Carlton House, Tuesday night, June 22nd, 1819

Most private and confidential

The Prince Regent finds it necessary to remark upon the Minute of the Cabinet of the 17th inst. that his observation in the note delivered to the Earl of Liverpool has been misunderstood.

In stating that it appeared to the Prince Regent that it might be useful to the public interests that the ultimate purpose of divorce should be effected rather by arrangement than by adverse proceeding, the Prince Regent was fully aware that the divorce never could be accomplished except upon satisfactory proof of adultery.

The Prince Regent, for the purpose of the communication in question, did assume (as the party from whom the communication proceeded might be inferred to have assumed) that the evidence collected would afford such satisfactory proof, and the Prince Regent considered that the offence to public decency and public morals which belonged to the nature of that evidence might more certainly be avoided if the ultimate purpose of divorce were submitted to by arrangement, than if the case were left exposed to the clamour of hostile feeling, however little supported by the public sentiment.

The commissioners employed to collect that evidence are in the course of preparing their report, and when such report is concluded, the Prince Regent will cause the same, together with the evidence annexed to it, to be laid before his confidential servants.

The Prince Regent will then have to call their attention to a vast mass of testimony collected under their own immediate sanction, with more than ordinary caution and ability, and which, in the opinion of those who have collected it, affords the clearest and most decisive proof of guilt.

The Prince Regent is sensible that the policy of any proceeding in the present case may be influenced by other considerations; but it is obvious that the weight and character of the evidence are circumstances of the utmost importance with respect to the public feeling.

The Prince Regent, concurring in the opinion that a divorce could never be effected by arrangement without satisfactory proof of adultery, cannot but entertain great doubt whether the sort of separation referred to in the communication could be effected by arrangement without the same proof of adultery.

It is presumed that without proof of crime the Legislature could not be brought to deprive the Princess of Wales of her high station, and of the rights, present and future, which may belong it it. But the sort of separation referred to does deprive the Princess of Wales of that station, and of all its rights present and future. It is equally irreconcileable [sic] with the notion of innocence; and as to her, it differs only from divorce in maintaining a fetter which can be of no advantage to her, and which is not likely to be sought by her.

The Prince Regent therefore desires that it may be well considered whether, for the purpose of arrangement, there is any essential difference between divorce and the sort of separation referred to, and whether the party who would propose the one would not accept the other, and whether the aiming at separation instead of divorce would not be an unnecessary sacrifice of important public interests, as well as of the personal feelings of the Prince Regent.

Minute of Cabinet, 24 July 1819

Your Royal Highness’s confidential servants have attentively considered the several papers your Royal Highness has been graciously pleased to refer to them, relative to the conduct of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.

Your Royal Highness’s servants thought it their duty in the first instance to desire the opinion of the King’s Advocate, and of his Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor-General, on several points arising out of the information contained in these papers, and they have annexed copies of the questions so put, and of the answers which have been returned to them.

According to these opinions your Royal Highness’s servants are led to believe that the facts stated in the papers which have been referred to them would furnish sufficient proof of the crime of adultery, provided they were established by credible witnesses; but it is at the same time the opinion of your Royal Highness’s confidential servants, in which they are supported by what has passed in personal communication with the law officers of the Crown, that, considering the manner in which a great part of this testimony has unavoidably been obtained, and the circumstance that the persons who have afforded it are foreigners, many of whom appear to be in a low station of life, it would not be possible to advise your Royal Highness to institute any legal proceeding upon such evidence, without further enquiry as to the characters and circumstances of the witnesses by whom it is to be supported; and it is further material to observe, that the law officers are of opinion that the papers do not furnish the means of stating in a proceeding in the Ecclesiastical courts, with the proper precision and accuracy, the facts to which those papers relate. . . .

With regard to . . . a direct application to Parliament, the difficulties in the way of a proceeding of this description will naturally have presented themselves to your Royal Highness’s mind.

A legislative proceeding upon a judicial case which does not rest in the first instance upon the judgment of some regular and competent tribunal, must be in principle liable to very serious objections.

Your confidential servants are not prepared to say that no case could exist which would warrant such a proceeding, but they are satisfied that evidence which in a common case, and before the ordinary tribunals, would be deemed fully sufficient to establish the fact of adultery, would, in a proceeding of this kind, be received with the greatest suspicion, particularly where the witnesses happened to be foreigners; and they doubt the success of any application to Parliament upon such a transaction, except in a case in which the testimony was so unexceptionable, clear, and distinct, as to be subject to no reasonable doubt. . . .

Meanwhile, Henry Brougham MP, an ambitious and none too scrupulous Whig lawyer who had been appointed the Princess’s legal representative, was attempting to resolve the difficulty in his own way. He offered to mediate between his client and the government, suggesting that the offer of an increased allowance, on condition that she did not return to England to claim the position and title of Queen on her husband’s accession, might keep her quiet. He writes in his memoirs of the preliminary negotiations whose breakdown led to the Queen’s determination to come to England.

. . . While she remained abroad, many rumours, of course, reached this country; but I had accounts which I could better rely upon from those in her suite, and there was great ground for alarm at the carelessness with which she suffered strangers to make her acquaintance, and of her gaiety and love of amusement leading her into the society of foreigners, and thus exposing her to the constant risk of false reports being conveyed to England by the spies set about her. Nothing, however, was done until the Princess Charlotte’s death removed one of her steady friends, with whom it was not thought convenient to renew a quarrel that had proved injurious to all but herself. When she no longer remained to take her mother’s part, the Commission was sent to Milan, and then it was quite manifest that measures were prepared to attack her. My correspondence with some friends of the Princess, on whom I could entirely depend – as Sir William Gell, the Miss Berrys, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, and Lady Glenbervie – made it quite clear that, after her daughter’s death, she had given up all wish to return; but that the vexation of the constant spies she was beset by, and all the mean contrivances to lower her in the eyes of whatever court she came near, had made her existence intolerable under this endless annoyance of every kind, and that she would be most happy if any arrangement could be made for her entire freedom from all vexation. Her wish was to take some royal title in the family, and, having her income secured, to be recognized by our foreign ministers at whatever court she might choose for a time to have her residence. . . . I have little or no doubt that if the proposal had been at once accepted by the Regent and his advisers she would have been glad to remain abroad. . . .

Brougham’s attempt to buy off the Princess is detailed in a letter to the Prime Minister’s representative, Lord Hutchinson.

Henry Brougham to Lord Hutchinson

London, June 14th, 1819

In the expectation that proceedings are to be instituted which may call the attention of Parliament to questions concerning the Princess of Wales, and with a view of avoiding the consequences, unpleasant to all parties and hurtful to the country, which may arise from the renewal of such discussions, I am desirous of stating through your Lordship, that upon a mature consideration of the whole subject I am disposed to advise the Princess to accede to an arrangement grounded on some such basis as the following: That she shall agree to a formal separation, to be ratified by Act of Parliament, if such a proceeding can be accomplished; that she shall renounce the right to be crowned in the event of a demise of the Crown, and shall from thenceforth take some other style and title, as that of Duchess of Cornwall; that she shall renounce the jointure to which she is entitled in the event of her surviving the Prince Regent, and that her present annuity shall be granted for her life instead of ceasing on the demise of the Crown. My firm belief is that, although the Princess can have nothing to dread from the result of any proceedings, she will be more comfortable after such an arrangement, since the Princess Charlotte’s death has in all probability removed any desire of returning to England; and I am quite sure that if it prevents the manifold evils of a public enquiry into the most delicate matters connected with the royal family, it will be highly beneficial to the country.

I remain, &c. H. BROUGHAM

Nevertheless, the Prince remained obdurate and no agreement had been reached when he inherited the throne in January 1820.

TWO

CAROLINE CLAIMS HER RIGHTS

ing George III died on 29 January 1820. The new King George IV was proclaimed on the 31st, the 30th being the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, and he at once determined to exclude his estranged wife from the position of Queen, demanded that her name be left out of the Anglican liturgy, and indicated his determination to seek a divorce. He refused to listen to his ministers’ protests and even appeared to be ready to dismiss them if they did not do as he wished.

Charles Greville, Clerk to the Privy Council, recorded these events in his diary.

February 4th – . . . On Sunday last arrived the news of the King’s death. The new King has been desperately ill. He had a bad cold at Brighton, for which he lost eighty ounces of blood; yet he afterwards had a severe oppression, amounting almost to suffocation, on his chest. . . . Yesterday afternoon he was materially better for the first time. . . .

February 14th – The Cabinet sat till past two o’clock this morning. The King refused several times to order the Queen to be prayed for in the alteration which was made in the Liturgy. The Ministers wished him to suffer it to be done, but he peremptorily refused, and said nothing should induce him to consent, whoever might ask him. . . .

February 20th – The Ministers had resigned last week because the King would not hear reason on the subject of the Princess. It is said that he treated Lord Liverpool very coarsely, and ordered him out of the room. The King, they say, asked him ‘if he knew to whom he was speaking’. He replied, ‘Sir, I know that I am speaking to my Sovereign, and I believe I am addressing him as it becomes a loyal subject to do.’ To the Chancellor he said, ‘My Lord, I know your conscience always interferes except where your interest is concerned.’ The King afterwards sent for Lord Liverpool, who refused at first to go; but afterwards, on the message being reiterated, he went, and the King said, ‘We have both been too hasty.’ This is probably all false, but it is very true that they offered to resign.

John Wilson Croker, a Tory Member of Parliament, also kept a diary:

Jan. 31st – The hurry and agitation of all these great affairs has made the King worse. He was proclaimed exactly at 12 o’clock at Carlton House inside the screen, with a good deal of applause of the people, but more of the soldiers. A very fine day.

Feb. 5th – The King would be better but that his anxiety about the Queen agitates him terribly.

Feb. 6th Sunday – The King was better, but unluckily last night he recollected that the prayers to be used today were not yet altered. He immediately ordered up all the Prayer-books in the House of old and new dates, and spent the evening in very serious agitation on this subject, which has taken a wonderful hold of his mind. In some churches I understand the clergy prayed for ‘our most gracious Queen’; in others and I believe in general, they prayed for ‘all the Royal Family’.

Feb. 10th – Came in [to town] to breakfast with Lowther1 We talked over the difficulty about praying for the Queen. It struck me that if she is to be prayed for, it will be, in fact, a final settlement of all questions in her favour. If she is fit to be introduced to the Almighty, she is fit to be received by men, and if we are to pray for her in Church we may surely bow to her at Court. The praying for her will throw a sanctity round her which the good and pious people of this country will never afterwards bear to have withdrawn. Lowther said that in all the discussions he had never heard the matter argued from this religious point of view, and he advised me to communicate my opinions to the King. We accordingly went over to Carlton House, and saw Blomfield [sic],2 and, strange to say, this view of the subject was as new to him as to Lowther. It made a great impression upon him. He said it never had occurred to the King to argue the question in that way; that it had been discussed as a mere matter of civil propriety and expediency, but that this was a new and clear view, and quite decisive. ‘If she was fit to be introduced as Queen to God she was fit to introduce to men. Yes, yes; the King is to see the Ministers today on it, and he shall in half an hour be in possession of this unanswerable argument.’ On my return I repeated this line of reasoning to Lord Melville, and, wonderful to say, it appeared that the religious and moral effect of the prayer had been overlooked by the Cabinet also. They had considered it only as to its legal consequences. Three or four of the Cabinet are for praying for her as Queen, but they will be outvoted. This question is of great importance, and I do not see the end of it.

Feb. 12th – A [Privy] Council held today, and it is finally settled not to pray for the Queen by name. An order to this effect will appear in to-night’s Gazette. The Archbishop was for praying for the Queen. . . .

Feb. 13th – A new and most serious difficulty has arisen. The King wants the Ministers to pledge themselves to a divorce, which they will not do. They offer to assist to keep the Queen out of the country by the best mode, namely, giving her no money if she will not stay abroad; but this will not satisfy the King. He is furious, and says they have deceived him; that they led him on to hope that they would concur in the measure, and that now they leave him in the lurch. It looks like a very serious breach. . . . The Cabinet offer all but a divorce; the King will have a divorce or nothing. His agitation is extreme and alarming; it not only retards his recovery, but threatens a relapse. He eats hardly anything – a bit of dry toast and a little claret and water. This affair becomes very serious on a more important account than the plans of the Ministers, but the King has certainly intimated intentions of looking for new and more useful servants.

Lord Colchester, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, was touring the Continent at the time of George IV’s accession. Two of his friends at home, both Members of Parliament, sent him news.

Henry Bankes to Lord Colchester, 15 February

Dear Colchester, – Your kind letter of Jan. 29th (the day of our poor King’s death) reached me last week. . . .

His present Majesty, who, by-the-bye, was in the most immediate danger of following, instead of succeeding, his father on the second and third day of his reign, is most firmly bent on a divorce from his odious and infamous consort. This, we must agree, is natural enough for him to wish, but as those who must carry his project into effect very naturally cast about and calculate their means, his Ministers report to him unanimously that it is not feasible, and neither can, nor ought to be, attempted. He perseveres. He insists most obstinately. The Ministers positively refuse. He threatens to dismiss them all, to which they reply that they are ready and willing to retire from his service. Written papers and argumentations of considerable length pass between them upon the subject of marriages and divorces. . . . This is our actual state of political uncertainty. . . .

Henry Legge to Lord Colchester, 16 February

My dear Lord Colchester . . . Three days after the good old King’s death his successor was so alarmingly ill that serious apprehensions began to be entertained that the longest reign in our annals would be followed by the shortest known in history. His appearance at the Council on Saturday last was that of a person very much reduced by illness, very pale, very weak and tottering. . . .

The death of the Duke of Kent, of the King, and the danger of His present Majesty, and a divorce, have put minor subjects into the background. That some process is intended I have good reason to believe. What it is to be, or what shape it is to assume, I do not know. There seems to be a general expectation that the lady will return to this country. . . .

The evidence of criminality is, I am told, conclusive; if so, it is not to be expected that she will be permitted quietly to assume her new dignity and exert its privileges. . . . It is an unpleasant subject in whatever light it is viewed, and can hardly fail to make a disturbance. . . .

Caroline had now taken matters into her own hands and determined to go to England to claim her rights. She announced her decision in a letter to the Prime Minister from Rome on 16 March (the spelling and phraseology of the letter are her own).

Rome, the 16th of March, 1820

The Queen of this Relams wishes to be informed through the medium of Lord Liverpool, First Minister to the King of this Relams, for which reason or motife the Queen name has been left out of the general Prayer-books in England, and especially to prevent all her subjects to pay her such respect which is due to the Queen. It is equally a great omittance towards the King that his consort Queen should be obliged to soummit to such great neglect, or rather araisin from a perfect ignorance of the Archbishops of the real existence of the Queen Caroline of England.

The Queen is also very anxious that Lord Liverpool should communicate this letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lord Liverpool will be not able to believe, I am sure of it, how much the Queen was surprised of this first act of cruel Tyranne towards her, as she had been informed through the newspapers of the 22nd of February, that in the cours of the Debbet in the House of Common on that evening, Lord Castlereagh, one of the best friends of Lord Liverpool, assured the Attorney-General to the Queen Caroline, Mr Brougham, that the King’s Servants would not omitte any attentions or use any harrsness towards the Queen, and after that speech of Lord Castlereagh to find her name left out of the Common Prayer-book, as if she was no longer for this world.

The Queen trusts that before she arrives in London to receive satisfactory answer from Lord Liverpool.

CAROLINE QUEEN

Brougham, who had received the formal appointment of Attorney-General to the Queen in late April, resumed his efforts to prevent her from coming to England and to obtain for her a suitable title and income which would enable her to live abroad in comfort and be received at foreign courts. He details the negotiations in his memoirs: