received the compliments of the States General; in the afternoon she and her suite took a drive in the Voorhout, and in the evening she held a drawing-room, which was thronged by persons of distinction. The next day she received visits from the French ambassador and other foreign ministers; and, on the twentieth, the Earl of Berkeley, who, with Sir John Walter of the green cloth, had left the squadron of men-of-war at Helvoet Sluys, with orders for the yachts to sail up to Rotterdam, having informed her that the wind was favourable, she, with her daughters, went on board a Dutch yacht, accompanied by the Earls of Albemarle and Strafford, the Count and Countess of Harran, the Princes of Anhault and Hesse, and other persons of distinction. At Rotterdam, mother and daughters embarked on board the English yacht, Mary, and after a pleasant voyage, they and their suite landed at Margate, on the eleventh of October (O. S.), and the next day proceeded to Rochester, where they were met by the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Dukes of Somerset and Argyle; the Earl of Bridgewater, lord chamberlain to their royal highnesses; and the Countesses of Dorset and Berkeley, who had been named two of the ladies of the bed-chamber." On the thirteenth, their highnesses, in a coach and six, followed by another coach, in which were their daughters, passed through the city of London to St. James's, where they took up their abode. Caroline and her husband were present at the coronation, which was solemnized with the usual pomp and ceremony at Westminster, on the twentieth of October; three days afterwards, they, with their royal father, the King, were sumptuously entertained in the Guildhall by the Lord Mayor and corporation of London, and, on the twentysixth of May, 1715, their beloved little daughter, Caroline, arrived in London, and took up her residence with them at St. James's. The pertinacious partiality of the King for the Whigs, and the greediness and censurable harshness of that party now that they commanded a not very great majority in parliament, raised throughout most parts of the kingdom murmurs of discontent, which were followed by riots, and, in the end, by a formidable Jacobite rebellion, in which blood was spilt on both sides; the government, however, came off victor, and after crushing the rebellion, punished the rebels with unsparing severity and cruelty. But with these matters we have not to do, saving so far as they affected the subject of this memoir, her husband, or progeny. Oxford took part in the Jacobite rising, and the university, in revenge for the impeachment of the Duke of Ormond, which deprived him of his chancellorship, and in defiance of the King, who had put the Prince of Wales in nomination for the office, chose Ormond's brother, Lord Arran, as their future chancellor. But, as if to counterbalance this galling rejection from Oxford, "the university of Dublin unanimously elected his Highness, the Prince, for their chancellor." On the sixteenth of February, 1715, the Prince also acted as Regent, by the title of Guardian of the Kingdom, and his Majesty's Lieutenant, during the King's first visit to Hanover, from July, 1716, to the subsequent January; and Walpole assures us, that in the performance of those regnal duties, he displayed a fondness for playing king, which so excited the anger and jealousy of his sire, that he was never again entrusted with the high office. It was during this visit to Hanover, that the King invested the Prince of Wales's son, Prince Frederick, with the order of the garter. In the autumn of 1716, the life of Caroline was endangered by a protracted and mis-managed labour, followed by the birth of a dead son. "The good Princess," writes Bishop Kenneth to Mr. Blackwell, "had the symptoms of labour on Sunday evening, and it is thought might have been safely delivered of a living son that night, or any time before Tuesday morning, if Sir David Hamilton or Dr. Chamberlayne, who attended without, might have been admitted to her; but the Hanover midwife kept up the aversion of the princess to have any man-about her, and so notwithstanding the importunity of the English ladies, and the declared advice of the lords of the council, she continued in pains till between one and two on the morning of Friday, November the ninth, 1716, when, the midwife alone delivered her of a dead male child, wounded in the head. She has since been extremely weak, and subject to continual faintings, and 'tis said all things are not after the manner of women in that condition; but the last account is more comfortable. 'Tis said her Royal Highness is somewhat better, and if this night pass well over, there will be great hopes of her doing well."* Caroline, although greatly weakened, speedily recovered, and on the twentyfourth of November, the bishop again wrote to Mr. Blackwell: "The Princess is in a very safe condition; the long-depending labour, and the loss of a fine prince upon it, made a great ruffle at court. The persisting of the midwife that she wanted no other help, has put the English ladies out of all good opinion of her; and the unwillingness of Sir David Hamilton to interpose without express command, brought on him severe expostulations and rebukes from the women, and particularly from good Mrs. Wake. He is most concerned, that the archbishop, in tenderness to the Princess, should tell him that he neglected his duty to the public." + The next accouchement proved more favourable. "Your physician, Sir David Hamilton," observes the above quoted contemporary to his friend, Mr. Blackwell, "has very much improved his interest at court, upon the occasion of the good Princess's delivery of a son [on the third of November, 1717]; for though he did not assist in the immediate moments, yet, by the ignorance or humour of the same midwife, her Royal Highness was so slow and so far gone into convulsive faintings, that there was great danger of her life and the child, if Sir David had not prescribed some medicines that brought on a speedy, safe delivery." The prince was christened George William, at St. James's, *M.S. Lansd. 1013, fol. 202. by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he died on the subsequent February, and was privately buried in Westminster Abbey. This christening led to the outbreak of a quarrel, which had long been brewing, between the father and grandfather. "The Prince of Wales," observes Walpole, "had intended his uncle, the Duke of York, to be co-godfather with the King; but, to his indignation, the King named that, to him, hateful noble, the Duke of Newcastle, for the second sponsor, and would hear of no other. The christening took place, as usual, in the Prince's chamber; but no sooner had the archbishop closed the ceremony, than the Prince, crossing the foot of the bed, stepped up to the Duke of Newcastle, and holding up his hand and forefinger, in a menacing attitude, said, 'You are a rascal! but I shall find you;' meaning, in broken English, 'I shall find a time to be revenged.' The King was so provoked at this outrage in his presence, that he pretended to understand it as a challenge, and the Prince was actually put under arrest! The arrest was soon taken off; but at night the Prince and Princess were ordered to quit St. James's Palace;" and, leaving behind them three daughters, who continued to reside with the King till his death, they retired to the house of the Prince's chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham; and at the commencement of 1717, the Prince purchased Leicester House, where they immediately established their London court, whilst at Richmond Lodge they enjoyed all the sweets and beauties of the country. "At this period," remarks the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, "Pope and his literary friends were in great favour at this young court, of which, in addition to the handsome and clever Princess herself, Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Selwyn, Miss How, Miss Bellenden, and Miss Lapell, with Lords Chesterfield, Bathurst, Scarborough, and Hervey, were the chief ornaments. Above all, for beauty and wit, were Miss Bellenden and Miss Lepell, who seem to have treated Pope, and been in return treated by him, with a familiarity that appears strange in our more decorous days. These young ladies, probably, considered him as no more than what Aaron Hill described him: tiers generally, and rather considered who wanted her, than whom she wanted." * Walpole describes her as an absurd, pompous simpleton;" and, as evidence 'Tuneful Alexis on the Thames' fair side, that she was shamefully corrupt and The ladies' plaything, and the Muses' pride." brazen-faced, observes," she had reThe court of the Prince and Prin-ceived a pair of diamond earrings as a cess of Wales was more gay and bril- bribe, for procuring a considerable post liant, and although far from moral, in in Caroline's household; and, decked the present acceptation of the word, not with these jewels, paid a visit to old near so licentious as that at St. James's, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who, where the King, who had divorced as soon as she was gone, said, What and imprisoned his unfortunate wife, an impudent creature, to come here with Sophia Dorothea, in the castle of Ahla bribe in her ears!' 'Madam,' replied den, in the German dukedom of Zell, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who was maintained some half-dozen German present, how should people know and English mistresses. Perhaps his where wine is sold, unless a bush is Majesty was annoyed at his son out- hung out?" If this anecdote be true, living him; but, whatever might have Lord Hervey's portraiture of Mrs. Claybeen the cause, he precluded from his ton is certainly overdrawn. court all peers, peeresses, and persons of distinction, who visited the monster and his she-devil,' as he very kindly desig; nated his son and daughter-in-law, and he never again became reconciled to them. This ill-will, however, detracted but little from their enjoyments. The Prince from inclination, the Princess from policy, presided over an almost daily round of pleasures during the lifetime of George I. They held drawingrooms every morning, gave a ball and evening party twice a week, and were frequent visitors to the play, the opera. and other public entertainments. But withal, it was said, that Caroline was under the influence of Mrs. Clayton, and that George Augustus was completely swayed by his mistress, Mrs. Howard, two ladies who were bed-chamber women to the Princess, but whose influence was less than it was supposed to be. The character of Mrs. Clayton has been variously drawn; Lord Hervey, who knew her intimately, says, "she had really a warm, honest, noble, generous, friendly heart; she took pleasure in doing good, and frequently used her influence at court in favour of those who had never solicited it, and could never repay her; in fact, in these matters, she reversed the maxims of cour Mrs. Howard we may pity, but not praise; she had the misfortune to marry, when very young, Mr.Howard," a wrongheaded, ill-tempered, obstinate, drunken, extravagant, brutal, younger brother of the Earl of Suffolk's family." She was married in Queen Anne's time; and poverty, or perhaps ambition, drove her and her husband to seek their fortunes at the rising court at Hanover. She there fascinated Prince George Augustus, and when George I. ascended the throne of England, she was appointed bedchamber woman to the Princess Caroline; she next separated from her profligate husband, and became the acknowledged leman of the Prince of Wales; but over him she, nor any other woman, saving his consort, ever obtained any very considerable influence. Between her and Mrs. Clayton there always existed a bitter enmity, the result of the one being attached to the Prince, the other to the Princess; "each was jealous of the other's interest, and each over-rated it;" but the last fact was not proved till the accession of George II., when it became apparent that the mistress of the Prince had as little influence over the King, as the favourite of the * Lord Hervey's Memoirs, a work to which we refer the reader for more ample details of the court and cabinet of George II. and his consort. Frincess had over the Queen. The truth was, that George Augustus thought it great and grand to keep a mistress, and appear not to be led by his wife; whilst the, perhaps, more ambitious than affectionate Caroline, who completely ruled him in everything, to retain her political and domestic sway, artfully winked at his connubial infidelity, retained Mrs. Howard in her service without a murmur, and, that she might herself have leisure to attend to subjects of superior import and questions of state policy, permitted Mrs. Clayton to act as her representative in matters of minor significance. On the fifteenth of April, 1721, the Princess Caroline was safely delivered, at Leicester House, of a son, who, in after years, as Duke of Cumberland, mercilessly slaughtered the Scots Jacobites at Culloden. This royal infant was on the second of May christened William Augustus, the sponsors being the King and Queen of Prussia, and the Duke of York, respectively represented by the Earl of Grantham, the Duchess of Dorset, and Lord Lumley. At this period, Lady Mary Wortley Montague introduced inoculation to England from Turkey, and Dr. Mead, by command of Prince George Augustus, tested its efficacy upon several condemned criminals. The experiment succeeded to admiration, and the doctor was permitted in the subsequent April to inoculate the Prince's two daughters, Amelia and Caroline, whose speedy recovery was followed by the inoculation of several of the young nobility; but withal, public prejudice for years afterwards denounced the practice as dangerous, and even sinful. Dr. Mead was ultimately appointed physician in ordinary to the Prince of Wales. On the twenty-second of February, 1723, the family of George Augustus and Caroline was increased by the birth of the Princess Mary; and on the seveath of December, 1724, their last-born child, the Princess Louisa, first saw the light at Leicester House. CHAPTER II. Accession of George II. and Caroline-The Walpole ministry retained-The King and Queen's revenues-George II. destroys his father's will-Coronation-The Queen and Walpole rule the nation-Prince Frederick created Prince of WalesHis parents hate him-Caroline and the Dissenters-She takes Lord Stair to taskThe Excise bill-Marriage of the Princess Royal to the Prince of Orange-Retirement from court of the Lady Suffolk. N the eleventh of Sir Spencer Compton, who was at the June, 1727, George time speaker of the House of Commons, the First, whilst on treasurer to the Prince, and paymaster his road to Hano-to the army. Sir Robert was neither ver, suddenly expired surprised nor disconcerted by this cool at Osnaburg. The reception; he knew that the King hated premier, Sir Robert him, and the Queen despised him, beWalpole, was the cause, in his coarse way, he had called first to carry this by no means dis- her a "fat bitch," when she was Prinagreeable tidings to the Prince, now cess of Wales; but, like ministers in George II., and his consort; the former more modern times, he clung tenaciously of whom willingly accepted his homage; to office, and when the thick-headed but in reply to his question as to who Sir Spencer proposed that her Majesty's should compose his Majesty's speech, jointure should be £60,000 per year, gave him to understand that his services he instantly offered to increase it to as prime minister would no longer be £100,000, together with Somerset House required, by politely referring him to and Richmond Lodge; and, further more, undertook to procure for her a present income of £50,000 per year, being just £10,000 more than Sir Spencer had proposed. This significant bribe won for the briber the good-will of the Queen, and, through her, that of her consort. Compton was made a peer, and shelved; and Sir Robert, now premier, not only prevailed upon the willing Commons to make the abovementioned grants to the Queen, but also persuaded that honourable assembly to vote the King the whole produce of the civil list, about £830,000 a year, whilst the income of his father, George I., amounted to only £700,000. The Queen did not wait for these measures being carried out, to publicly evince the favour in which she held Sir Robert and his family. The first few days of her accession as Queen Consort, she was occupied with her husband in receiving compliments and condolences from the prelates, lords, ambassadors, and other functionaries; " and on this occasion," says Horace Walpole, "my mother (Sir Spencer's designation, and not its evaporation, being known) could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she descried by her Majesty, than the Queen cried aloud, There, I am sure I see a friend!' The torrent divided, and shrunk to either side; and as I came away,' said my mother, I might have walked over their heads if I had pleased.' the robes, the day after the King's accession, and Sir William Young, Thinking Young," as the King used to designate him, who was turned out of the treasury; but even these statesmen, to use Lord Hervey's sentiment, " only dived to come up again fresh as ever." Our first two Hanoverian Kings paid but little regard to the testamentary documents of their departed relatives. The last will of the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, and that of her aged father, the Duke of Zell, were both destroyed by George I.; and when, at the councilboard, Dr. Wark, Archbishop of Canterbury, and one of the executors of the late King, placed that monarch's will in the hands of George II., the new King, instead of gratifying the expectant council by unsealing it and reading it aloud, very coolly put it into his pocket, and walked out of the chamber. It was immediately afterwards rumoured, and generally believed, that George II. had burned his father's will; and as that will has never since been heard of, it is but natural to conclude that the rumour was not groundless. The two duplicates of this will, which George I. had placed in the hands of two German princes, were, for certain fees and rewards, also given up and destroyed, and, in the end, the matter was compromised, by the payment of various sums to the King of Prussia, the Duchess of Kendal, and some other of the reported legatees, who threatened actions at law. In October, the royal coronation was solemnized at Westminster Abbey, with The King, as well as his consort, was extraordinary pomp, and the usual ceso charmed by Walpole's having pro-remonies. On this occasion of gay, gorcured him an unexpectedly large revenue, that, although in his father's reign he had called that minister "rogue and rascal!" and his brother Horace "scoundrel and fool!" he already gave him his confidence, and the whole of the Walpole ministry, including those nobles the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Townsend, whom the King, as Prince, had heartily hated and despised, were, with only two exceptions, retained in office. These exceptions were, Sir Robert's sonin-law, Lord Malpas, who was uncercmoniously ejected from the mastership of geous display, the King was attired in every conceivable "badge and trapping of royalty," and the dress of the Queen was equally magnificent. She wore a rich pearl necklace, the only one of Queen Anne's jewels which George I. had not distributed amongst his German favourites; and, remarks Lord Hervey, "besides her own jewels, which were numerous and valuable, she had on her head and shoulders all the pearls she could borrow of the ladies of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of |