more ardent Tories were unwilling to give any vote in favour of the heir of Hanover, or against the authority of the Crown, and they left the House in a body, to the number of forty-five; a secession which, as it appears to me, exactly measures the strength of the decided Jacobites in that House of Commons. It is remarkable, that in the preceding Parliament the Jacobite numbers were said to be almost the very same, being computed, in 1728, at fifty.* Wyndham himself, to maintain his influence over his party, though he spoke, found it expedient to refrain from voting. Thus on the division, the Opposition was reduced to 204, while the Minister, who could still muster 234, prevailed. On the 25th, the same motion was made in the House of Lords by Carteret, but rejected by a very large majority; and a protest, on this occasion, was signed by only fourteen Peers. The step which the Prince had taken on this occasion, though rash and violent, is not incapable of much defence: his next admits of none. Stung by his recent disappointment, and anxious at all hazards to show some public insult to his father and mother, he took the opportunity of the ensuing 31st of July, when the Princess was seized with the pains of childbirth. It was not till less than a month before that he had deigned to send the King and Queen any announcement of the approaching event. The whole Royal Family were then at Hampton Court, and all proper attendance for Her Royal Highness was awaiting her first summons. Nevertheless, no sooner did her pains begin, than the Prince, to the imminent danger of her life, hurried her in the middle of the night to London, to the unaired palace of St. James's, without the slightest intimation to the King and Queen, or to any of the great officers of state whom custom required to be present on such occasions. The King, however, hearing of this abrupt departure, immediately despatched Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Harrington to attend the birth; but they did not arrive till after the Princess was delivered of a daughter. The behaviour of Frederick to the Queen (for, on the first notice of her son's exploit, * See Hallam's Constit. Hist. vol. iii. p. 338, she too had hastened to St. James's, and was with the Princess at seven in the morning,) is recorded by no better authority than Horace Walpole's, but seems highly probable, and well according with the rest of his conduct. "The gracious Prince, so far from attempting an apo“logy, spoke not a word to his mother; but, on her re"treat, gave her his hand, led her into the street to her "coach—still dumb; but a crowd being assembled at "the gate, he kneeled down in the dirt, and humbly "kissed Her Majesty's hand! Her indignation must ❝ have shrunk into contempt!"* Such feelings might, indeed, be justified by such actions. What can we think of him who runs the risk to lose his wife, rather than not insult his father; and who contrives to prove himself by one act a careless husband, a froward son, and a foolish politician? Frederick very soon found it requisite, for the sake of public opinion, to offer his parents many humble submissions and apologies. He had no better excuse to make, than that the Princess was taken ill sooner than had been expected; that he thought it prudent to remove her towards the best assistance, rather than await its coming; and that, in his hurry, he had forgotten to apprise their Majesties. No one gave the slightest credit to these pretexts: it was evidently a settled and concerted design-the fruit of that sort of stupid cunning by which men so often overreach themselves. We may conjecture what was the language of his enemies on this transaction, when we find the strong disapprobation even of his friends. Thus Bolingbroke writes to Wyndham from France: "I am at a loss to "find the plausibility or the popularity of the present "occasion of rupture. He hurries his wife from Court "when she is upon the point of being delivered of her 'first child. His father swells, struts, and storms. "confesses his rashness, and asks pardon in the terms of 66 one who owns himself in the wrong. Besides that all "this appears to me boyish, it is purely domestic, and He *Reminiscences, Works, vol. iv. p. 309. He repeats the same story in his Memoirs, vol. i. p. 64.; and it is confirmed since the earlier editions of my History by Lord Hervey's Memoirs, as published in 1848; with only this correction, that the scene took place, not on the Queen's first visit, but on her second, eight days later (vol. ii. p. 409.). "there is nothing, as far as I can discern, to interest the "public in the cause of His Royal Highness."* The Prince's apologies were now so humble and so numerous, that they should perhaps have made some impression upon the King; at least, have induced him to leave things as they were, and avoid a total and public separation; but, as the son had been disrespectful and untoward, so was the father harsh. Lord Hardwicke earnestly endeavoured still to reconcile them; while Walpole, very little to his honour, took the contrary course. It is admitted that, far from striving to close, he wished to keep open the breach, fearing lest his own removal might be among the terms of a reconciliation.† He urged, that the King had now an advantage, by the Prince having put himself so much in the wrong; which advantage ought not to be parted with. Thus preventing (it was an easy task) the King's passion from cooling, he drew up in his name, and by his order, a message to the Prince in very violent terms, it being better, said Walpole, to take it short at first." The language was afterwards greatly softened at Lord Hardwicke's interposition; but it still remained sufficiently strong: it drew an angry picture of the Prince's conduct; declared that the King would receive no reply; and informed him, "It is my pleasure that you leave St. James's, with all your "family." This message, signed by the King, was delivered to the Prince on the 10th of September. It being peremptory, Frederick retired from the palace, and took up his residence at Norfolk House, St. James's Square, which immediately became the centre of all opposition and political intrigue. The King issued an order, that no persons who paid their court to the Prince and Princess should be admitted to his presence; and an official circular was sent to each of the foreign Ministers, containing the whole correspondence that had passed in this unfortunate transaction. 66 66 Such was the public estrangement between George the Second and his son, nearly resembling in its particulars the estrangement, twenty years before, between the same monarch and his father. A christening was the occasion of the first-a childbirth of the latter. In both cases † Coxe's Life, p. 539. *Letter, October 13. 1737, was the heir apparent commanded to quit the Royal palace; in both was the scandal trumpeted to all Europe through the foreign Ministers. Yet, amidst all this liberality of disclosures, it appears that, as in most domestic quarrels, there still remained some secrets untold. “Sir Robert Walpole informed me," writes Lord Hardwicke, "of certain passages between the King and himself, and "between the Queen and the Prince, of too high and "secret a nature even to be trusted to this narrative; "but from thence I found great reason to think, that this "unhappy difference between the King and Queen and "His Royal Highness turned upon some points of a more interesting and important nature than have hitherto "appeared." 66 There was one point on which at the time all parties held the same language, that union in the Royal Family was most essential to its own interest and preservation. This we find assumed on all sides as an indisputable axiom. Yet, strange as it seems, this quarrel, so unanimously deplored by the friends to the dynasty, as a heavy blow to it, tended, in fact, in no small degree, to its security. The Tories, who had hitherto considered their party as under a perpetual exclusion from office and power, who saw no glimmering of light for themselves, except through the restoration of the Stuarts, had been ready to join the Jacobites in their most desperate designs. They would have given secret encouragement to any conspiracy, and perhaps public support to any rebellion. Very many amongst them indeed were attached to the Pretender, not as a cause of hope, but as a cause of principle; because they believed, however mistakenly, in his right, because the spirit of the gallant and noble-minded and much enduring Cavaliers was yet alive within them; -and these men were not to be won over. But there were also not a few who saw with pleasure a far easier and safer avenue to power open in the favour of Frederick, who detached themselves from their dangerous foreign connection, became reconciled to the dynasty, and began to await the death of George instead of his dethronement. The separation in the Royal Family was followed, in only a few weeks, by the unexpected death of the ami able and excellent Queen. Her complaint was a rupture, which false delicacy had always induced her to conceal from her attendants. Lady Sundon alone had some years before surprised the secret, and thereby risen to great influence over her Royal mistress. Her real situation being thus unknown to her physicians, they treated it as gout in the stomach, and prescribed remedies which heightened the malady. When it was at length disclosed to them, it was already beyond their skill. One of the surgeons declared, that if he had known it two days sooner, Her Majesty should have been walking about the next day. She died on the 20th of November, to the deep and lasting grief, not only of the King, but of the nation. Her last days, though racked with pain, were courageously and patiently borne, and set forth, in the highest degree, temper, magnanimity, affection for her family, and resignation to God. Once, we are told, after a most painful operation, she became apprehensive that the agony had wrung from her some peevish expressions, and reproached herself with them. She took a tender leave of the King, and recommended her servants to his future favour, extending her concern even to the lowest. To Walpole she is reported to have said,—“I hope you "will never desert the King, but continue to serve him "with your usual fidelity;" and, pointing to her husband, she added, "I recommend His Majesty to you." Yet the death-bed of this high-minded Princess was not wholly free from blame, still less from the malignant exaggerations of party. She was censured as implacable in hatred even to her dying moments: as refusing her pardon to her son, who, it was added, had sent humbly to beseech her blessing. "And unforgiving, unforgiven dies!" cries Chesterfield in some powerful lines which were circulated at the time, but which I have not been able to recover. With still more bitterness, Pope veils his satire beneath pretended praise.* The real truth seems to be, as we find it stated in a letter only two days afterwards, that "she absolutely refused to see the * "Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn, "All parts perform'd, and all her children bless'd!" Epilogue to Satires. |