THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH: AUNT OF THE QUEEN.[2]

THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH: AUNT OF THE QUEEN.[2]

The letters of a favourite daughter of George III., and an aunt of the Queen, whose life extended through the eventful period 1770-1840, make a book of great interest and permanent value. The period referred to takes in some of the more momentous events in modern history—the loss of the American colonies, the French Revolution, the battle of Waterloo, and the fall of Napoleon—as well as various important parliamentary movements at home. Letter-writing is now generally supposed to be a lost art; but the Princess Elizabeth, as one who “ever remained an Englishwoman to the backbone,” wrote letters of the genuine old-time order to her confidante. She imposed wholesome restraint on herself in days when party spirit was more violent than we can realise; but being in fullest accord with her father, who aimed at personal government, her sympathy was rather for the cause of “Church and King than for that of reform and progress.” The Princess did not deal in scandal, however, she was not a politician, and in other respects she showed a delicacy of language not common in those times.

In reference to his heroine, Mr. Yorke says that “the familiarity of her style brings us all the closer to her, and the more familiar it is the more intimate becomes our friendship for her. Sometimes it is the case that where the style is most imperfect, there most appear the individuality and originality of the Princess, and her portrait drawn by herself must be of more value and interest to us than any accuracy or polish of diction.” The Princess also loved her friends, and this led her to write to them con amore, so that, as we read, “a whiff of old times is breathed upon us.” She was in the best sense a woman of her own times, one who inherited her father’s good qualities; and during the ailments of youth she proved her good constitution by surviving the medical treatment of the day. A girl of fifteen in these days may still be liable to congestion of the lungs, but what would she now say to being bled five times in forty-eight hours, to having to take “emetics every other day,” and to having her “backbones rubbed with musk?” In other respects the Princess seems to have been subjected to very old-fashioned treatment. Even at the age of twenty-six she was not allowed to read a book which her mother had not previously examined. Nor does she appear to have possessed an income of her own until she was forty-two years old. The Princess was six years older when she married Frederick VI. of Hesse-Homburg.

The attention which the Princess extended to certain of her chosen friends, appears to have been quite extraordinary. Thus, Lady Harcourt, wife of the second Earl, says: “Once, when I was ill and confined to the house for six weeks, I received from her in that time 143 letters.” The crosses of life, its joys and sorrows, with adventures which vividly show how different those times were from our own, all in turn come in for a share of attention. The journey between Windsor and Weymouth was then a familiar one, and it was possible even for Royalty to meet with rough adventures on the road. On October, 3, 1792, the Princess writes: “Anything so disgusting as the breakfast at Woodgate’s Inn, on the way from Weymouth, I thank God I never saw before and never wish to see again. Bad butter, tea, coffee, bread, etc.; nothing to eat but boiled eggs, which were so hard that I could not eat them. So I returned to the carriage just as I got out—starved.” Anxieties connected with public affairs and the wars gave far more serious trouble, however. The brothers of the Princess, the Duke of York, and the father of the present Duke of Cambridge, were with the army on the Continent in the summer of 1793, and when news came that the heroes were “within sixty yards of Valencienne,” their sister turned sick at thought of the peril; but the Queen, their mother, showed “such an uncommon share of fortitude,” that she would not even speak about it. Still more alarming was the King’s being attacked by the mob when on his way to open Parliament. A bullet even entered the royal carriage, the street crowd following “in an insolent manner, moaning and screaming.” In private the Queen cried over that adventure; “but I, who naturally cry a great deal, scarcely shed a tear,” remarks Elizabeth. “It was indeed very horrid,” she adds; “and my poor ears, I believe, will never get the better of the groans I heard on the Thursday in the Park, and my eyes of the sight of that mob!” A plot to murder the King, and to attack the Tower, the Bank and the prisons, and on account of which Colonel Despard and six others were executed, followed in 1801. In May, 1810, the Duke of Cumberland was attacked while in bed by a servant. “My brother, by all accounts, has been mercifully preserved by the interference of a wise and good Providence, but sadly wounded,” remarks the Princess; and then she adds, “We live in such a state of constant anxiety, that upon my word when I rise in the morning I feel, ‘What will happen before night?’”

Things happened beyond what were looked for, so hard and troublous were the times; but the heaviest trials of the Royal family culminated in the blindness and insanity of the King and in the death of the Princess Charlotte in November, 1817. As regarded the old monarch, the distress occasioned by his condition was for others rather than for himself; personally, his bodily health was good, he was happy in his mind, and found something wherewith to amuse himself through each day.

There is one letter relating to the death of the Princess Charlotte which affords us a vivid glimpse into the inner circle of the Royal family in November, 1817—

“Just after we had set down to dinner at six, Gen. Taylor was asked out; our hearts misgave us; he sent out for Lady Ilchester, which gave us a moment for to be sure that something dreadful had happened: the moment he came in my mother said, ‘I am sure it is all over,’ and he desired her to go upstairs. You may conceive that the horror, sorrow, and misery was far beyond show, for it struck the heart, and no tear would fall after such a dreadful shock.... It is indeed most tremendous, but it is the Lord’s doing, and we must with great humility bow, and kiss the rod, and remember that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and that all that proceeds from that hand is right; and that He does all things for the best.”

This faith in God was as characteristic of the King as it was of this favourite daughter. It is true that at the time of Princess Charlotte’s death George III. knew nothing of the crushing sorrow which had come upon the Royal family; but the King had very remarkable lucid intervals in his insanity when his Christian fervour never failed to find expression. It had been so before his intellect had become finally clouded, however.

At that crisis of danger from the mob already referred to, the King sought to calm the feelings of excited peers, when about to step into his carriage after opening Parliament, by saying—

“Well, my lords, one person is proposing this, and another is supposing that, forgetting that there is One above us all Who is disposing of everything, on Whom alone we depend.”

After her marriage in 1818, the Princess was thoroughly happy with her husband, the Landgrave Frederick VI. of Homburg. Some would ridicule the state and ceremonial of the little court as being a mimicry of the Royal magnificence of greater nations; but it was picturesque, full of interest, and probably gave far more satisfaction or enjoyment than courtiers found either at London or Paris. At all events, while she remained thoroughly English, and never even quite conquered the German language, the Princess would speak of her own “dear little Homburg” in the language of genuine affection. After the death of the Landgrave, who expired April 2, 1829, through influenza affecting an old wound received in the wars, she refers to the palace as “My own dear home, once the happiest of happy homes.”

Certain fashionable people in London made it their business to ridicule the Landgrave; but all impartial readers will see that his character was superior to that of his detractors.

The Princess lived for about twenty-two years after her marriage, and during half that period she was a widow. In some respects, to the English reader, this was the more interesting period of a quietly interesting life. Home life afforded genuine pleasure, and while there may have been no pretentious magnificence, gardens, pictures and books afforded tasteful recreation, though the poor were not forgotten. The Princess even lent books to such friends as could be trusted with them.

“If you wish to take any home, I shall be happy to lend them, knowing you to be careful,” she writes to Miss Swinburne. “I have been obliged to give it up here, for if you could have seen some that were returned to me you would have been disgusted; I was quite provoked.”

Unhappily, the ill-usage of books is not confined to Germany. On many matters strong common-sense opinions are expressed. She does not accept exaggerated local gossip; and though she never had measles, she says, “I have no fears, I trust in God, and don’t let myself think about catching anything, otherwise I should be miserable.”

We have glimpses of Brighton as it was sixty or seventy years ago, when the reigning sovereign had a palace there.

“It appears as if it was a petty London, and all the fine ladies come down in parties to enjoy a few days of the sea and back again in no time,” writes the Princess in December, 1832.

There was a great procession to celebrate the town being made into a parliamentary borough by the Reform Bill of 1832; but “why they would not turn it at once into a marine city or town, I cannot think. It was large enough when I was there and now much increased.”

Early in 1835 we find the Princess at the Pavilion on a visit to her brother William IV.

“I generally drive out with my brother,” she writes. “He goes out, and stays out till the lamps are well lighted, when we come in; to-day the dear Queen is gone with him, so I may remain quiet.”

Political feeling still ran high, but Princess Elizabeth confessed to hating politics. “I had rather talk of winter potatoes, though a very mealy subject.”

In 1833, being over sixty, she realised that she was growing old.

“I am still from all accounts a fine old lady,” she remarks. “My looking-glass tells me at times rather tall, and I say to you with truth that no one enjoys more their old age than me, and am convinced that I have been a much happier being since the spring and summer of life are over—so many things I do and can do without bearing anything unpleasant.” She was able even to wear a winter tippet which her sister Augusta presented. “I look like a bear in it; but what signifies looks when health is in question?”

As time passed, Elizabeth had other reminders that she was growing old.

“I blush to think how often I am late of a morning, which is not like me, but my poor legs require time,” she writes in November, 1833. “First I read my serious readings, then write, and do what business I must do, and of late I have had a good deal of what I call parish business, settling work for the poor and trying to content them if possible.” She seems to have cultivated her mind in a wholesome way without harbouring any foolish ambitions. “I have taught myself to see everything with pleasure and without envy,” she remarks, and added later, “Without religion there can be no peace, no order, no blessing.”

The Princess was struck with the excess of luxury in England in 1836. “More jewels and more extravagance than ever.”

It was then that she saw the last of her brother William IV., whose death in the following year she sincerely deplored. Elizabeth thus survived to see the opening of the present reign; but she belonged too much to a former age and to a different order of things to have much sympathy with the new and more promising outlook of the Victorian era.

The memorial volume which Mr. Yorke has so well edited is of considerable interest and of permanent value.

G. H. P.