136 Ch. 16. 1772 AMIABILITY OF QUEEN CAROLINE. domestic concord. They pass several hours of the day together. The influence of the wife is unlimited; nor is the history of his irregular amours reserved from that entire confidence which the fond husband reposes in the partner of his cares. Her Majesty shows her appreciation of such affectionate candour by placing the favourite mistress immediately about her person. The lady is 'her good Howard.' During absence, the King's letters to the Queen abound in the language of conjugal endearment, and in tender expressions of gratitude for her consideration of his happiness. The latter term is, on one occasion, explained by reference to certain domestic arrangements which her Majesty had made for the accommodation of a German lady, Madame de Walmoden, whom the King had purchased of her husband (a man of rank) a great bargain, and was about to bring over from Hanover. The charms and merits of the Countess de Walmoden indeed form the staple of one series of His Majesty's domestic correspondence, which is very regular, and very voluminous. It is possible that this topic might not have been particularly interesting, or even agreeable to the Queen; but that a wife who undoubtedly possessed both the love and respect of her husband, should be offered, and should accept, such a strange tribute of marital confidence and affection; that people who were far from being either fools, or philosophic contemners of the marriage tie, should carry on such an intercourse, is happily marvellous to modern comprehension. HER LAST MOMENTS. 137 The last moments of this most liberal and Ch. 16. tolerant of wives were marked by an incident which the chronicler himself thinks almost too Death of Queen 1772 extravagant to be credible. The Queen, like Caroline. It was not to be expected that the female Loose morals of the Royal members of such a family should preserve de- Family. licacy of manners, or even purity of morals amidst the foulness which surrounded them. Their father's mistresses were domesticated in the palace; and the daughters were privy to the extraordinary relations which existed between their parents. When the King began to get tired of Lady Suffolk, 'I wish with all my heart,' said the Princess Royal, he would take somebody else, that mamma might be relieved from the ennui of seeing him for ever in her room.' According to Lord Orford, and the more measured 138 Ch. 16. 1772 Education of COURT OF LEICESTER HOUSE. testimony of Lord Hervey, another of the princesses entertained a passion for the Duke of Grafton. The same authorities leave no doubt that the youngest daughter, the virtuous Princess Caroline,' as her lover gallantly terms her by way of distinction, carried on a tender correspondence with Hervey himself, a married man; and that the Queen was privy to, or at least connived at, this equivocal intercourse. The young prince, however, was in no danger of personal contamination from this sordid profligacy. During his father's lifetime, the estrangement of the two branches of the royal family admitted of no more than formal intercourse; after the death of Frederick, the Princess, wholly intent on maintaining an extensive influence over the heir apparent, rarely suffered him to visit the Court of his grandfather. But, in truth, the Court of Leicester House was hardly a better school of decency and morality than that of St. James's. The Prince of Wales, like his father, was an uxorious husband; but while the latter was led astray by gross wantonness of appetite, the former was an adulterer on principle. Passionately enamoured of his wife, a beautiful and accomplished woman, his Royal Highness yet thought it became him, as a man of fashion, to keep a mistress; accordingly he associated ostentatiously with Lady Middlesex; and as if to prove that he had not yielded to temptation, he selected the plainest among the many women of LORD BUTE. quality, who would have felt honored by his condescension. 139 Ch. 16. 1772 Prince of George the Third was only twelve years of age, Death of the when death removed from before his eyes this Wales. parental example of open homage to vice in the garb of fashion. An exterior of decorum was studiously spread over the household of the widowed Princess. The loose associates of the Prince, both male and female, were banished from Leicester House; nor were the royal children suffered to associate with the rising generation of a dissolute nobility. Yet scandal penetrated within that exclusive circle; and it was generally believed that the relations between the Princess Dowager and the chief officer of her son's household were not consistent with the regard to morality which she affected. Whether this aspersion on the fame of her Royal Highness was founded in truth, will probably for ever remain in doubt; but the close intimacy which certainly existed between the Princess and Lord Bute, whether that intimacy was really criminal or not, could hardly fail to give a tone of hollowness and hypocrisy to those lessons of religion and morality which the royal children were so sedulously taught. Character of The King himself, in consequence of this educa- Private tion, or in spite of it, was in his private conduct the King. respectable, if not exemplary. His sister and his two surviving brothers were not equally fortunate. If the Queen of Denmark was unjustly con 140 1772 DUKE OF CUMBERLAND. Ch. 16. demned, as some writers have maintained, then it is difficult to say what kind or degree of evidence is sufficient to warrant a conviction, on a charge of disloyalty in a wife to the marriage vow. The unhappy lot of that princess, in being allied to a partner who could neither command the respect, nor engage the affections of a woman of sense and spirit; the temptations to which she was exposed; the indignities to which she was subjected; and the sad catastrophe of her misfortunes, cannot fail, however the mournful story is related, to excite sympathy and compassion. Many of the circumstances go far to extenuate her guilt; but none of these, not even the death-bed denial of the wronged and unhappy lady herself, can prevail against the clearest and most cogent proof. The King's Of the King's brothers, neither could prefer any title to respect. The Duke of Cumberland vied in profligacy with the most shameless debauchees even of that generation; and signalised his folly even more than his depravity, in the affairs by which he courted public scandal. He ended a short but eventful career of vice, by espousing Mrs. Horton, a handsome and clever widow, sister to Colonel Luttrell, the sitting member for Middlesex. At the same time that these nuptials were announced, the Duke of Gloucester took the occasion of declaring his marriage, five years previously, with a lady in a private station. This connexion was considered still more objectionable than that of the Irish adventuress; the Duchess |