The History of King George the Third. Horace Walpole
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of the new Queen.—Her mental and personal Characteristics.—Anecdotes.—Disposal of the vacant Bishopricks.—Lord Talbot.—Coronation Squabbles.—Sir William Stanhope’s bitter Speech against the Scotch.—Lord Talbot and the Barons of the Cinque Ports.
While the attention of mankind hung on the negotiation, the King’s messengers were suddenly sent forth to all Privy Councillors to meet at one o’clock, at St. James’s, July 8th, on urgent and important business. The business itself was an absolute secret. Every body concluded that so solemn and unusual a summons of the Council was to give fuller sanction to peace. How great was the general surprise when they heard his Majesty had convened this assembly to notify his intended marriage with the Princess of Mecklenberg Strelitz! A resolution taken and conducted with so much mystery, that till that hour perhaps not six men in England knew such a princess existed.
It has been mentioned with what aversion the Princess Dowager had opposed a marriage projected by the late King between his heir apparent and a very accomplished Princess of Brunswick. A wife for her son, not chosen by herself nor obliged to her, by no means suited the views of the Princess. Could she have chained up his body, as she fettered his mind, it is probable she would have preferred his remaining single. A mistress would have been more tremendous than a wife. The next brother, the Duke of York, was not equally tractable, had expressed little reverence for his mother, and much antipathy to her favourite. If the King should die and leave even an infant, a minority did not deprive the Princess of all prospect of protracting her rule.
But there had happened circumstances still more pressing, more alarming. The King was fallen in love with Lady Sarah Lenox, sister of the Duke of Richmond; a very young lady of the most blooming beauty, and shining with all the graces of unaffected, but animated nature. What concurred to make her formidable to the mother and Favourite, was, her being under the tutorage of Mr. Fox, her eldest sister’s98 husband; and in truth, she and her family spared no assiduity to fix the young monarch’s heart. And though Fox would probably not have been scrupulous or delicate on the terms of cementing that union, the King’s overtures were so encouraging, that Fox’s views extended even to placing the young lady on the throne. Early in the winter, the King told Lady Susan Strangways,99 Mr. Fox’s niece, and the confidant of Lady Sarah, that he hoped she (Lady Susan) would not go out of town soon. She said, she should. “But,” replied the King, “you will return in summer, for the coronation?” Lady Susan answered, “I do not know; I hope so.” “But,” said the King again, “they talk of a wedding. There have been many proposals; but I think an English match would do better than a foreign one. Pray, tell Lady Sarah Lenox I say so.” The next time Lady Sarah went to Court (and her family took care that should not be seldom) the King said, “he hoped Lady Susan had told her his last conversation.”
The Junto was not blind to these whispers and dialogues. Lady Bute was instructed to endeavour to place herself in the circle, and prevent them. And the Princess Augusta marked her observation of what was going forward to Lady Sarah herself, laughing in her face, and trying to affront her. But Fox was not to be so rebuffed. Though he went himself to bathe in the sea (possibly to disguise his intrigues), he left Lady Sarah at Holland House,100 where she appeared every morning in a field close to the great road (where the King passed on horseback) in a fancied habit, making hay.
Such mutual propensity fixed the resolution of the Princess. One Colonel Graeme was despatched in the most private manner as a traveller, and vested with no character, to visit various little Protestant Courts, and make report of the qualifications of the several unmarried Princesses. Beauty, and still less, talents, were not, it is likely, the first object of his instructions. On the testimony of this man, the golden apple was given to the Princess of Mecklenburg; and the marriage precipitately concluded. The ambassador was too remarkable not to be farther mentioned. This Graeme, then, was a notorious Jacobite, and had been engaged in the late rebellion. On a visit he made to Scotland, his native country, after this embassy, David Hume, the historian, said to him, “Colonel Graeme, I congratulate you on having exchanged the dangerous employment of making Kings, for the more lucrative province of making Queens.”
So complete was the King’s deference to the will of his mother, that he blindly accepted the bride she had chosen for him; though, to the very day of the council, he carried on his courtship to Lady Sarah; and she did not doubt of receiving the crown from him, till she heard the public declaration of its being designed for another. Yet, in confirmation of the trust he had reposed in Lady Susan Strangways, himself appointed Lady Sarah to be one of the bridemaids to the Queen. Yet Lord Bute’s friends affected to give another turn to the story; and insisted that the King had never thought of Lady Sarah but for his mistress. All, they affirmed, he had said to Lady Susan was, to bid her ask Lady Sarah if she should like a place in the family of the new Queen; that she had accepted it; and that the King had destined her to be Mistress of the Robes. Her surprise and disappointment, however, were too strongly marked to make this legend credible. Lady Susan adhered to the truth of what she had reported, in various examinations by her father and uncle. And the resentment Lady Sarah expressed, and which caused, as the Court said, her not being placed about the new Queen, was proof enough on which side the truth lay. The Junto persuaded the King she was a bad young woman; but if she was, what hindered her becoming his mistress? Was it criminal to propose being his wife rather than his mistress? And what became of the King’s boasted piety, if he intended to place his mistress about his wife? Some coquet attempts, which Lady Sarah afterwards made to recover his notice, and her stooping to bear the Queen’s train as bridemaid, did her more prejudice than all that was invented against her. Pique and extreme youth might excuse both; and her soon after preferring a clergyman’s son to several great matches, gave evidence that ambition was not a rooted passion in her.
In my own opinion, the King had thoughts of her as a wife; but wanted resolution to oppose his mother and Lord Bute. Fortunately, no doubt, in this instance; for the daughter of a subject, and the sister-in-law of so ambitious and exceptionable a man as Fox, would probably have been productive of most serious consequences. To avoid returning to this topic, I will only remember, that during the wedding-service, on mention of Abraham and Sarah, the King could not conceal his confusion. And the day following, when everybody was presented to the Queen, Lord Westmoreland,101 old and dimsighted, seeing Lady Sarah in the rich habit of bridemaid, mistook her for Queen, and was going to kneel and kiss her hand.
But while the arrival of the Queen was expected, and the approaching ceremonies of the wedding and coronation engrossed the attention of the public, affairs grew towards a serious crisis in the Cabinet. Prince Ferdinand had opened the campaign with vivacity and advantage, driving the French before him, and seizing, or reducing them to destroy great part of their magazines; a success that enabled him to form the sieges of Ziegenhayn and Cassel. Marshal Broglio was not disheartened or inactive; but re-assembling his dispersed troops, he attacked the Hereditary Prince, and routed the body under his command; in consequence of which the sieges were raised, and Prince Ferdinand retired, abandoning the whole country of Hesse to the enemy. This advantage, it was apprehended, would make France less eager for peace. Yet she continued the negotiation with much appearance of warmth; and though she was far from bringing all the facilities our Court wished for, the conclusion of the treaty seemed to be rather impeded by the loftiness and firmness of Mr. Pitt, than by the insincerity of France. Still, as it afterwards appeared, she had secret resources in reserve; nor could she fail to hope but Mr. Pitt might be displaced, and her condition mended, when the administration should fall into the hands of men whose honour was not so much concerned in the event of the war, and who had national honour much less at heart. The transactions have been printed, and will appear in every common history. My part is to relate by what steps and intrigues the negotiation was broken off.
In the end of August, the council had ordered their ultimate concessions to be drawn and sent to France. Mr. Pitt made the draught and carried it to Council. The other ministers thought it spoke his sense, not theirs; or rather, contained more of an ultimatum than they were disposed to adhere