The Town Part 46

George the First and Second were both dull gentlemen, with a difference; the former a pale round-featured man, content to appear the insipid personage he was; the latter, aquiline-nosed, affecting spirit and gallantry, and attaining only to rudeness. They were people of the then German schools of breeding, very different from the present; and St. James's at that time combined a tasteless air of decorum with gallantries equally unengaging. George the First had two German mistresses, one as lean as the other was fat; and George the Second another, remarkable for nothing but making money. Lady Wortley Montagu and Horace Walpole have given some amusing notices of the palace in connection with their Majesties and the court.

"This is a strange country," said George the First on his coming to England. "The first morning after my arrival at St. James's, I looked out of the window and saw a park with walks, a ca.n.a.l, &c., which they told me were mine. The next day, Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of _my_ park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of _my_ ca.n.a.l; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me _my own_ carp out of _my own_ ca.n.a.l in _my own_ park."

We are not to suppose that the King delivered this speech in the smart good English of its reporter, or in any English; for he was not acquainted with the language. He and his Minister Sir Robert Walpole used to converse, even on the most important matters of state, in such Latin as their school recollections furnished, the Minister understanding German or French as little as the King did English.

His Majesty, in the first days of his new court, was more agreeably surprised one evening by the sudden return of Lady Mary Wortley to the party which were a.s.sembled in his rooms, and which she had somewhat strangely pleaded a previous engagement for quitting. She returned, borne in the arms of Mr. Secretary Craggs, junior, who had met her going away, and seized hold of the fugitive. He deposited her in the ante-room; but the doors of the presence-chamber being hastily thrown open by the pages, she found herself so astonished and fluttered that she related the whole adventure to the no less astonished king; who asked Mr. Craggs whether it was customary in England to carry ladies about "like sacks of wheat." "There is nothing," answered the adroit secretary, "which I would not do for your Majesty's satisfaction."

Towards the close of this monarch's reign, the future court historian, Horace Walpole, then a boy of ten years of age, had a longing "to see the King;" and as he was the son of the Minister, his longing was gratified in a very particular manner. A meeting was arranged on purpose the day before his Majesty took his last journey to Hanover:--

"My mother," says Walpole, "carried me at ten at night to the apartments of the Countess of Walsingham, on the ground floor, towards the garden of St. James's, which opened into that of her aunt the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal's; apartments occupied by George the Second after his Queen's death, and by his successive mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. Notice being given that the King was come down to supper, Lady Walsingham took me alone into the d.u.c.h.ess's ante-room, where we found alone the King and her. I knelt down and kissed his hand.

He said a few words to me, and my conductress led me back to my mother. The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins, not tall, of an aspect rather good than august, with a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue ribband over all. So entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the d.u.c.h.ess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady."

This lady, the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, a German, was the king's lean mistress. The fat one, another German, whom he made Countess of Darlington, was "as corpulent and ample as the d.u.c.h.ess was long and emaciated." Walpole, who gives this account of her, adds, that he remembered being "terrified" in his infancy at her enormous figure.

She had "two fierce black eyes, large and rolling between two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck," &c., "and no part restrained by stays." "It was not," says Horace, "till the last year or two of his reign, that this foreign sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English mistress." This was Miss Brett, daughter of Savage's reputed mother the Countess of Macclesfield, by her second husband, Colonel Brett, whom we have seen, in our accounts of the Streets of London, keeping company with Addison. Miss Brett was a very lively and aspiring damsel. During the visit to Hanover just mentioned, she took it upon herself to break out a door from her apartments in St. James's Palace into the Royal garden. The eldest of the king's grand-daughters, also a very spirited person, ordered it to be closed up again. Miss Brett, more spirited, again broke it open, and we hear of the matter no further. But the king died on his journey, and the new mistress's empire was over.

The new King, George the Second, while Prince of Wales, had quarrelled with his father, and had been ordered to quit St. James's with all his household. Though a great formalist, he was also a great, and indeed somewhat alarming, pretender to gallantry, being of opinion, according to Lady Wortley Montagu, that men and women were created solely to be "kicked or kissed" by him at his pleasure. It is of him that stories were told of the King's cuffing his ministers, and kicking his hat about the room; and he is understood to be the King Arthur of Fielding's Tom Thumb. He had a wife, however, of some real pretensions to liveliness of mind, afterwards Queen Caroline, the friend of men of letters, and a very excellent wife too, for she was charitable to her husband's irregularities, and is said to have even shortened her life by putting her rheumatic legs into cold water in order to be able to accompany him in his walks. Here, in St. James's Palace, as well as at Kensington, she held her literary and philosophico-religious levees (being fond of a little theological inquiry); and here also she had brought together the handsomest and liveliest set of ladies in waiting ever seen on these sober-looking premises before or since. For, though Lady Winchelsea, the poetess, was among those of James the Second, the ladies about that sombre personage and his Queen seem, for the most part, to have been both dull and ugly. His first Queen, Anne Hyde, had been a maid of honour herself, and did not encourage the sisterhood; and his second Queen, the young and handsome Mary of Modena, who had heard of the doings at Whitehall when her husband was Duke of York, condescended to be jealous of him, in spite of their difference of years; James being comparatively an old gentleman, while she was not out of her teens. Indeed, he gave cause for the jealousy, and added no hopes of amendment; for being a Papist as well as a solemn gallant, he divided his time between the ugly mistresses he was fond of, and the priests who absolved him from the offence; an absolution that was superfluous, according to his brother Charles; the "merry monarch"

having been of opinion that the mistresses themselves were penance enough.

George the Second's German mistress was a Baroness de Walmoden. On the death of Queen Caroline, he brought her over from Germany, and created her Countess of Yarmouth. She had two sons, the younger of whom was supposed to be the King's; and a ludicrous anecdote connected with the supposition and with the abode before us, is related of the famous Lord Chesterfield. On the countess's settlement in her state apartments, his lords.h.i.+p found one day in the palace ante-chamber a fair young gentleman, whom he took for the son in question. He was accordingly very profuse in his compliments. The shrewd lad received them all with a grave face, and then delightfully remarked, "I suppose your lords.h.i.+p takes me for 'Master Louis;' but I am only Sir William Russell, one of the pages." Chesterfield piqued himself on his discernment, particularly in matters of intercourse; and it is pleasant to catch the heartless man of "the graces" at a disadvantage that must have extremely mortified him.

There is another St. James's anecdote of Chesterfield, which shows him in no very dignified light. Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, a very amiable woman, supposed to have been one of the mistresses of George the Second, was thought to have more influence with his Majesty than she possessed. Sir Robert Walpole told his son Horace that Queen Caroline saw Lord Chesterfield one night, after having won a large sum of money at court, steal along a dark pa.s.sage under her window that was lighted only by a single lamp, in order to deposit it in Mrs. Howard's apartment, for fear of carrying it home in the dark. Sir Robert (his son adds) thought that this was the occasion of Chesterfield's losing his credit with the Queen; but the conclusion has shown it to be unfounded. Chesterfield, however, though really a very sharp-sighted man, was rendered liable by his bad principles to a failure in what he thought his acutest views; and Caroline's better nature may have seen through his lords.h.i.+p's character without the help of the lamp and the dark pa.s.sage.

The Queen's ladies above alluded to were the famous bevy of the Howards, Lepells, and b.e.l.l.e.n.dens, celebrated in the pages of Swift and Pope. They have become well known to the public by the appearance of the _Suffolk Correspondence_, and _Lady Hervey's Letters_. George the Second, when Prince of Wales, and living in this palace with his father, had probably made love to them all, fluttering more than flattering them, between his attentions as a prince and his unengaging qualities as a brusque and parsimonious man. Miss b.e.l.l.e.n.den, who became d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle, is said to have observed one day to him as he was counting his money in her presence (probably with an intimation of his peculiar sense of the worth of it), "Sir, I cannot bear it. If you count your money any more, I will go out of the room." Another version of the story says that she tilted the guineas over, and then ran out of the room while the Prince was picking them up. This is likely, for she had great animal spirits. When the Prince quarrelled with his father, and he and his household were ordered to quit St.

James's, Miss b.e.l.l.e.n.den is described, in a ballad written on the occasion, as taking her way from the premises by jumping gaily down-stairs.

The occasion of this rupture between George the First and his son was curious. Palaces are very calm-looking things outside; but within, except in very wise and happy, or very dull reigns, are pampered pa.s.sions, and too often violent scenes. George the First and his son, like most sovereigns and heirs apparent, were not on good terms. The Princess of Wales had been delivered of a second son, which was to be christened; and the Prince wished his uncle the Duke of York to stand G.o.dfather with his Majesty. His Majesty, on the other hand, peremptorily insisted on dividing the pious office with the officious Duke of Newcastle. The christening accordingly took place in the Princess's bed-chamber; and no sooner had the bishop shut the book than the Prince, furiously crossing the foot of the bed, and heedless of the King's presence, "held up his hand and forefinger to the Duke in a menacing att.i.tude (as Lady Suffolk described the scene to Walpole) and said, 'You are a rascal, but I shall find you' (meaning in his broken English, 'I shall find a time to be revenged')." The next morning Lady Suffolk (then Mrs. Howard), while about to enter the Princess's apartment, was surprised to find her way barred by the yeomen with their halberds; and the same night the Prince and Princess were ordered to quit so unexpectedly, that they were obliged to go to the house of their chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham, in Albemarle Street. The father and son were afterwards reconciled, but they never heartily agreed.

Nor was the case better between George the Second and the new Prince of Wales, his son Frederick. If George the First was a common-place man of the quiet order, and George the Second of the bustling, Frederick was of an effeminate sort, pretending to taste and gallantry, and possessed of neither. He affected to patronise literature in order to court popularity, and because his father and grandfather had neglected it; but he took no real interest in the literati, and would meanly stop their pensions when he got out of humour. He pa.s.sed his time in intriguing against his father, and hastening the ruin of a feeble const.i.tution by sorry amours.

Not long after the marriage of George the Third, Buckingham House was settled on his young Queen in the event of her surviving him; and the King took such a liking to it as to convert St. James's Palace wholly into a resort for state occasions, and confine his town residence to the new abode. Buckingham House was so called from John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghams.h.i.+re, who built it. It was a dull though ornamented brick edifice, not unworthily representing the mediocre ability and stately a.s.sumptions of the owner, who was a small poet and a fastidious grandee, nearly as mad with pride as his d.u.c.h.ess. This lady was a natural daughter of James the Second (if indeed she was even that, for a Colonel G.o.dfrey laid claim to the paternity), and she carried herself so loftily in consequence, as to wish to be treated seriously as a princess, receiving visitors under a canopy, and going to the theatre in ermine. She and the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, who had a rival palace next door to St. James's, used to sit swelling at one another with neighbourly spite. Sheffield, her husband, is said to have first made love to her sister Anne (afterwards Queen), for which her uncle, Charles the Second, has been accused of sending him on an expedition to Tangier in a "leaky vessel." The duke wrote a long complacent description of Buckingham House, that has often been reprinted, recording, among other things, the cla.s.sical inscriptions which he put upon it and the princely chambers which it contained for the convenience of the births of his ill.u.s.trious house. The births came to nothing in consequence of the death of his only legitimate child; a natural son inherited the property, and Government bought it for Queen Charlotte. Henceforward it divided its old appellation of Buckingham House with that of the "Queen's House;" almost all the Queen's children were born there; and there, as at Kew and Windsor, she may be said to have secreted her husband as much as she could from the world, partly out of judicious consideration for his infirmities, and partly in accordance with the pride as well as penuriousness that were at the bottom of manners not ungentle, and a shrewd though narrow understanding. The spirit of this kind of life was very soon announced to the fas.h.i.+onable world after her marriage by the non-appearance of certain festivities; and it continued as long as her husband lived, and as far as her own expenditure was concerned; though when her son came to the throne she astonished the public by showing her willingness to partake of festivities in an establishment not her own.

A deplorable exhibition of her tyrannous and unfeeling habits of exaction of the attentions of those about her is to be found in the _Diary of Madame d'Arblay_ (Miss Burney), whom they nearly threw into a consumption. It is clear that they would have done so, had not the poor waiting-gentlewoman mustered up courage enough to dare to save her life by persisting in her request to be set free. Queen Charlotte was a plain, penurious, soft-spoken, decorous, bigoted, shrewd, over-weening personage, "content" through a long life "to dwell on decencies for ever," inexorable "upon principle" to frailty, but not incapable of being bribed out of it by German prepossessions, and whatever else might a.s.sist to effect the miracle, as was seen in the instance of Mrs. Hastings, who had been Warren Hastings's mistress, and who was, nevertheless received at court. Pleasant as her Majesty might have been to Miss Burney, who seems to have loved to be "persecuted," she was a.s.suredly no charmer in the eyes of the British nation; nor was she in the slightest degree lamented when she died.

Nevertheless she was a very good wife, for such we really believe her to have been; we mean not merely faithful, (for who would have tempted her?) but truly considerate, and anxious, and kind; and besides this she had another merit, not indeed of the same voluntary description, but one for which the nation is strongly indebted to her, though we are not aware that it has ever been mentioned. We mean that her cool and calculating brain turned out to be a most happy match for the warmer one of her husband, in ultimate as well as immediate respects; for it brought reason back into the blood of his race, and drew a remarkable line in consequence between him and his children; none of whom, however deficient in abilities, partook of their father's unreasonableness, while some went remarkably counter to his want of orderliness and self-government. The happy engraftment of the Cobourg family on the stock, completed this security in its most important quarter; and if ever a shade of more than ordinary sorrow for the necessity should have been brought across the memory in that quarter by a ridiculous pen, the sense of the security ought to fling it to the winds, with all the joy and comfort befitting the n.o.blest brow and the wisest reign that have yet adorned the annals of its house.