Note 268 — APPENDIX.

154. There is evidently some confusion of dates in this narrative. It was on the 14th December that the grand City banquet was given at the London Tavern in honour of the hereditary Prince of Orange—the Duke of Clarence in the chair. According to Lord Colchester (Diary), the young Prince did not arrive from Spain before the 11th of December.

155. Purposely erased in the original journal.

156. “The frost was ushered in by a fog which, for its intensity and duration, has seldom been equalled. This began about five in the evening of Monday, December 27th.... The Prince Regent, intending to pay a visit to the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield House, was obliged to return back to Carlton House, after one of his out-riders had fallen into a ditch on this side of Kentish Town, and which short excursion occupied several hours. Mr. Croker, of the Admiralty, also wishing to proceed on a visit northward, wandered in the dark several hours without making more than three or four miles’ progress.... There is nothing in the memory of man to equal the late fall of snow, which, after several shorter intervals, continued incessantly for forty-eight hours, and this, too, after the ground was covered with a condensation, the result of nearly four weeks’ continued frost. Almost the whole of the time the wind blew continually from the north and north-east, and was intensely cold.”—Universal Magazine, January, 1814.

The thaw did not commence until the 6th of February, 1814, and a fair was held on the Thames for several weeks. “Paths were formed,” says the Universal Magazine for March, “both direct and diagonal from shore to shore; and frequent cautions were given to those heroines whose curiosity induced them to venture on the glassy plane, to be careful not to slip off the kerb. The votaries of Terpsichore amused themselves with the mazy dance, in which they were accompanied principally by Pandean pipes, while others diverted themselves with skittles; and the well-known cry of ‘Up and win ’em’ resounded from the voices of numerous vendors of savoury pies, gin, and gingerbread, &c. Most of the booths were distinguished by appropriate signs; there were the Watermen’s Arms, the Crown, the Magpye, the Eelpot, &c.; and one wag had a notice appended to his tent that several feet adjoining his premises were to be let on a building lease.”

157. The Morning Chronicle of January 6th gives the following account of the christening at Belvoir:

“The baptismal ceremony of the infant Marquis (who, to use the phrase of a nurse, ‘is as fine a little fellow of four months old as ever was seen’) took place at six o’clock in the evening (4th January, 1814). The sponsors were—

H.R.H. the Prince Regent - in person,

H.R.H. the Duke of York - in person,

Her Grace the Duchess-Dowager of Rutland, proxy for H.M. the Queen.

His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived at the Castle early in the morning, and he performed the baptismal ceremony with solemnity and graceful expression, assisted by the Rev. John Thornton, Chaplain to his Grace the Duke of Rutland, who made the responses.... A discharge of fifteen cannon from the Castle announced the event,” &c. &c. There are long accounts in the papers of the time of the festivities at Belvoir Castle. The Prince Regent’s subsequent illness may be thence easily accounted for.”

158. “A singularly neat and very elegant landau will be launched in a few days by H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales. It is built by Messrs. Birch and Son, Great Queen-street, Lincoln’s Inn-fields. The carriage is beautifully finished. The body is painted a fine light green, emblazoned with arms, supporters, &c., with mantles on the panels. On the side panels is a beautiful à la Grecque border, enclosing the cipher C. P. W., with a coronet above. The same ornaments are placed on the door rails; very superb silver joints, lamps, and other appropriate ornaments, extremely neat; the lining is a fine scarlet cloth, with rich gold lace and fringe; the hammercloth is, agreeable to royal etiquette, composed of scarlet cloth, very full, with a purple velvet border, and trimmed with gold lace. Outside elbows are introduced, but the projection is upon so moderate a scale that they are scarcely perceptible. The carriage is a very light compass perch painted yellow, picked out with maroon colour, hung upon whip springs, two feet six inches from the ground; silver hoops to the wheels; an upright coach-box, made in the usual style, but not fixed.”—Morning Chronicle, February 3rd, 1814.

This statement was contradicted in the same paper on the following day “by authority.”

159. “The Baron Van der Duyn Van Maasdam, Grand Master of the Household to his Royal Highness the Prince Sovereign of the Netherlands, whose presentation to the Prince Regent at a private audience on the 9th inst (March), accompanied by M. Fagel, the regular ambassador, was notified in the Gazette of Saturday last, as having come on a special mission from the Court of the Hague, has been sent over to make a demand in form of the Princess Charlotte’s hand in marriage for the hereditary Prince of Orange. The sanction of the previous consent and approbation of the Prince Regent, the Princess herself, and of the whole Court and Government, has already smoothed the way to the arrangements of this important and auspicious union, which must, however, according to the established etiquette among crowned heads, be demanded by embassy after it has been agreed upon by the parties; and the settlements and provisions resulting from the exalted condition and prospective sovereign duties of the personages to be married, must be reduced into a treaty by plenipotentiaries specially appointed. M. Van Maasdam is charged with full powers for this purpose on the part of the Prince Sovereign of the Netherlands.”—Morning Chronicle, March 17, 1814.

160. It had been adjourned to that date.

161. See Lord Colchester’s Journal, under date February 28. “At Lord Sidmouth’s office met Lord Liverpool; talked over the proceedings upon the intended marriage of the Princess Charlotte to the hereditary Prince of Orange, which is to be communicated to Parliament before Easter.”

162. “May 21, 1814. The Prince of O——e, it is said, wishes his wife to go with him to his own Dutch land, and so does the Prince Regent, who does not like a rising sun in his own: but report also whispers that the rising sun is aware of this, and will not consent to the marriage, unless she is allowed to shine in her own dominions.”—Lady C. Campbell’s Diary, vol. i.

163. Subsequently married to the Crown Prince of Würtemberg.

164. Prince Nicolas Wasiliwitch Repnin, nephew of Count Panin, minister and favourite of the Empress Catherine. As Russian Ambassador at the Court of Stanislaus Poniatowski, he virtually governed Poland from 1764 till 1770, when he joined the army under Count Romanzoff, and greatly distinguished himself in the campaign against the Turks. In after years he gained more than one victory over that enemy, and also became the successful rival of Prince Potemkin. He was raised to the rank of Field Marshal by Paul I., and was sent to Berlin rather as a negotiator than as an ambassador. He died at Moscow in 1801.

165. And in their persons, too. Lord Colchester speaks of them as “two ugly old women.”

166. “The Duchess of Oldenburg is spoken of as a very clever woman, and I am inclined to believe the truth of the report, by the observation she seems to take, not only of our places of entertainment, but of everything best worth seeing in this country. I understand she is a great favourite of Princess Charlotte, and gives her (as it is supposed) excellent advice about her conduct.”—Lady C. Campbell’s Diary, vol. i.

167. On the 20th of April, 1814.

168. Count Woronzow died in England on the 18th June, 1832. His daughter married the Earl of Pembroke, and was the mother of Lord Herbert of Lea. The Count left one son, whose name, as Prince Woronzow, became familiar to English ears during the Crimean war.

169. April 20th.

170. “Judge of the transport with which I seize my pen to apprise you that my daughter has acted with the greatest firmness, promptitude, and energy of character possible in the very intricate business concerning her marriage. She has manœuvred and conquered the Regent so completely, that there can be no more doubt that the marriage is broke off. The Prince Hereditary of Orange was secretly sent for by the Regent, and arrived under the feigned name of Captain St. George. Under that same name he presented himself next day at Warwick House early in the morning. She was in bed, and had not expected him in this country; Miss Knight received him. She had afterwards a long conversation with him, in which she showed him every letter that had passed between her father and her upon that subject. She then declared to him that she never would leave this country, except by an Act of Parliament, and by her own especial desire. She then desired that he might retire, and that she would not see him again till these matters were settled. Two days after he came again and brought a message from the Regent, in which he proposed to her that he would forgive and forget everything, and that she should immediately come to him, and that everything should be arranged in the most amicable manner. She declared that she would not see her father, or any of the family, till their consent to her remaining in this country had been obtained, or that otherwise the marriage would be broke off. She has received no answer since the course of a week from her father, and she supposes that the papers have been sent to Holland, to make the family there also a party concerned in a new political question for the future happiness of England. It has, in my opinion, nothing at all to do with the Dutch family. The Duchess of Oldenburg, I believe, is her chief adviser, and as she is a clever woman, and knows the world and mankind well, my daughter cannot be in better hands.”—Extract of Letter from the Princess of Wales in Lady C. Campbell’s Diary, vol. i. See Appendix.

171. “We are now fitting up the Duke of Cumberland’s house, to receive Alexander (Emperor of Russia) in, because we have none of our own. And in the mean time our future son-in-law lodges at his tailor’s! because he has neither house nor hotel to put his head in; and though we drink his health occasionally with three cheers, and twice as many speeches, we do not love him well enough to give him a good bed anywhere.”—Extract of Letter from Lord Granville to the Marquis of Buckingham, dated “Camelford House, May 9, 1814.” Memoirs of the Regency, vol. i.

172. There was precedent for this—see following extract from preamble of the statute 1 Mary, sess. 3, chap. 2, relating to the proposed marriage of Philip and Mary: “That the said Lord Prince shall not lead away the foresaid most Noble Lady out of the borders of her Highness’s realme, unless she herself desire it, nor carry the children that shall be borne of his matrimony out of the same realme of England; but to the hope of succession to come, shall there suffer them to be nourished and brought up, unless it shall be otherwise thought good by the consent and agreement of the nobilitie of England.”

173. “While every one in the three kingdoms was under the influence of excitement, it was not to be expected that her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales would remain unmoved. The Queen was about holding two Drawing-rooms, and as the Prince Regent intended to be present, his Royal Highness had requested her Majesty to intimate to the Princess of Wales his determination not to meet her, either in public or in private. The Queen was thus placed under the painful necessity of intimating to her Royal Highness that she could not be received at her Drawing-rooms. This was quite sufficient provocation for the inflammable nature of the Princess, and the following day her Royal Highness addressed the Queen at considerable length, apparently acceding to the prohibition, but threatening to appeal to the public. Her Majesty answered with characteristic dignity, which elicited a rejoinder from her angry daughter-in-law, which produced only a simple acknowledgment from the Queen. She then addressed herself to the Prince Regent, referring, as usual, to the declaration of her entire innocence by the Government in 1807, and giving him to understand that they must meet at the approaching marriage of their daughter, and at their coronation; adding, that the prohibition was rendered intolerable, in consequence of the distinguished visitors then flocking into the country; one of whom, the illustrious heir of the House of Orange, had ‘announced himself to me as my future son-in-law.’”—The Duke of Buckingham’s Memoirs of the Regency vol. ii.

Mr. Methuen, on the 4th of June, proposed in the House of Commons “that an humble address be presented to the Prince Regent, praying that he would be graciously pleased to acquaint the House by whose advice he had been induced to form the unalterable resolution of never meeting her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, on any occasion, either in public or private.” After a brief and unimportant discussion, the motion was withdrawn.

174. “Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte arrived a few minutes after one o’clock, accompanied by Miss Knight, in an elegant and particularly neat and light state carriage, with three footmen and the coachman in new state liveries. She was received by the Duchess of Leeds and the dresser, who had previously arrived in her plain carriage, to attend her Royal Highness in dressing in a court dress for the first time, yesterday being her Royal Highness’s first appearance at a public Drawing-room. At the close of the Drawing-room, on her Royal Highness leaving the Palace, the Prince of Orange handed her Royal Highness to her carriage.”—Morning Chronicle, June 3, 1814.

175. Prince Alexander of Oldenburg was a child in the third year of his age.

176. “June 17, 1814. Before the Princess (of Wales) dismissed Lady ——, Miss ——, or myself, she received a letter from Princess Charlotte, telling her mother the match between herself and the Prince of Orange was entirely off, and at the same time enclosing a copy of a letter she had written to the Prince of Orange, in which she alludes to some point of dispute which, it seems, remained unsettled between them; but Princess Charlotte does not precisely name what that point was, and chiefly rests her determination of not leaving this kingdom upon the necessity of her remaining in England to support her mother. The whole letter turns upon the Princess of Wales —it is extremely well written, and very strong. I conclude the words are Miss Knight’s, but the sentiments, for the present moment, are Princess Charlotte’s.... I know too much of all parties to believe that Princess Charlotte, in her heart, quarrelled with her lover from any motive of real tenderness towards her mother. I believe that what the Princess of Wales told me some time ago is perfectly true, namely, that her daughter did not at all admire the Prince of Orange, and only wanted to be her own mistress; and now finding, I conclude, that that end would not be answered by marrying him, she has determined to break off the engagement.”—Lady C. Campbell’s Diary, vol. i.

177. Mr. Tierney.

178. “Widow of a Colonel Campbell, who went out governor to Bermuda, or Bahama (I forget which), and died on his arrival there. Of this lady he (George the Third) had received a most favourable account from an authority he respected.”—Diaries of the Right Hon. G. Rose.

179. “July 26, 1814. I received several letters from England to-day. Mrs. —— says: ‘The Princess Charlotte went with a heavy heart, I hear, yesterday to Cranford Lodge [Cranbourne Lodge] (I think that is the name of the place), Windsor Park. She has, of all her friends, only been allowed to see Miss Mercer. Miss Knight has not been suffered to return to her. The courtiers say all is made up, but no one believes them; how can they, while she is a state prisoner?’”—Lady C. Campbell’s Diary, vol. ii.

180. “My dear Madam,—I cannot think the request in your note can be inconsistent with my orders, and I will certainly communicate the contents of your note to her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte.

“I am, dear madam,

“Your obedient servant,

“Charlotte Rosslyn.”

181. It may be interesting to observe the manner in which these events were recorded by the journals of the day. The following is from the Morning Chronicle:

“An extraordinary sensation was yesterday produced by the report of an event which took place on Tuesday evening.

“It is perfectly known that the intended marriage between the Princess Charlotte of Wales and the Hereditary 311Prince of Orange was broken off in consequence of the dread which her Royal Highness felt of being taken out of the country at a time when considerations of the highest importance demanded her continuance in it. From the time of the breaking off this negotiation, attempts have been incessantly made, if not to renew it, at least to show the high offence which she had given; and her Royal Highness has suffered the most cruel agitation, although her health was so seriously affected as to demand the most lenient attention, and particularly that her mind should be kept free from all harassing disturbance. Her physicians had, some time ago, given a written certificate that the complaint of her lameness required sea bathing and sea air; and we have reason to believe that this certificate was laid before the Prince Regent some days ago.

“On Tuesday evening his Royal Highness the Prince Regent entered Warwick House, and, without any previous notice, informed the Princess Charlotte that Miss Knight and all her household, as well as all the servants attending upon her, were dismissed, and that her Royal Highness must forthwith take up her residence in Carlton House, and from thence to Cranford Lodge [Cranbourne Lodge], where the Countess-Dowager of Rosslyn, the Countess of Ilchester, the two Miss Coates, and Mrs. Campbell, were actually in the next room in readiness to wait upon her; and this intimation was made in terms of unusual severity, as it was accompanied by a declaration that she was to be under their sole superintendence, and that she was neither to be permitted to receive visits or letters. In this embarrassing situation, and under the agony of despair, she ran out of Warwick House, threw herself into a hackney-coach, and drove to Connaught-place, the residence of her mother. The Princess of Wales was absent, but a groom was despatched to Blackheath, to request her immediate return to town. The groom met her Royal Highness on the way, and delivered the Princess Charlotte’s note acquainting her with the event; upon which the Princess of Wales drove to the Parliament House, and eagerly inquired for Mr. Whitbread, who was absent, and for Earl Grey, who had left town several days before. She then went on to her own house at Connaught-place, where her daughter communicated the particulars we have stated, and where Mr. Brougham, who had been sent for to Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor’s, had arrived.

“The flight of the Princess from Warwick House was soon made known to the Prince Regent, at the Duke of York’s, where a great party were assembled. Notice of it was also sent to the Queen, who had a card party, and which she instantly left. A council was called, and Lord Ellenborough and Lord Eldon were consulted. Rumour says that a habeas corpus was to be issued to bring back the person of her Royal Highness to Carlton House. But the Duke of York and three of the Prince Regent’s people went to Connaught House, and stated to her Royal Highness her father’s commands to conduct her back. Mr. Brougham had previously acquainted her Royal Highness that, by the laws of the land, she must obey her father’s command; and when the Duke of York gave her an assurance that she should not be immured, nor treated with the severity which had been threatened, she consented to return with him, and, accordingly, at a little past three o’clock yesterday morning, her Royal Highness was conveyed to Carlton House, where she now remains, all the persons by whom she has been served being removed from attendance on her person, except Mrs. Lewis, who had followed her to Connaught House with her night-clothes, and who was permitted to return with her in the carriage along with the Duke of York.”—Morning Chronicle, July 14, 1814.

182. Mrs. Piozzi says: “He never read but one book, which he did not consider as obligatory, through in his whole life; and Lady W.’s Letters was the book.”—Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 259.

183. 332The Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas was prevented by indisposition from attending during any part of these proceedings.

184. On the 19th of July the Duke of Sussex “put some most important questions to the Ministers respecting Princess Charlotte, which they refused to answer, and thus admitted the inferences to which the questions point. It appears that his Royal Highness had concurred in the advice given to the Princess Charlotte by Mr. Brougham respecting her return to Carlton House. The first was, Whether the Princess Charlotte had been allowed personal intercourse with her friends since Tuesday last? Secondly, Whether she had been allowed to write and receive letters, and whether she had been allowed the use of pen, ink, and paper? Third, Whether she had been, and now was, under restraints from which persons not in actual imprisonment are free? Fourth, Whether the physicians of her Royal Highness had last year certified, by a writing under their hands, as they have this year, that the sea is necessary for her recovery from her complaints? Fifth, Her Royal Highness being considerably past the age at which the Legislature has repeatedly recognised the capacity of heirs to the Crown to exercise its powers without assistance, whether any steps had been taken to form an establishment for her Royal Highness suited to her exalted rank in the State, and fitted to prepare her for the functions she will one day be called on to exercise?”—Morning Chronicle, July 20.