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The Queen Caroline Affair, 1820
George, Prince of Wales, was prevailed
upon to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick as his part of a deal;
in return, parliament promised to pay off his enormous debts.
George had already married Maria Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic widow;
however, the marriage was void in accordance with the terms of the Royal
Marriages Act of 1772. The Prince of Wales also had a number of
mistresses; one of them, Lady Jersey, went to meet Caroline when she
arrived from Brunswick on 5 April 1795.
Caroline was twenty-six years old, of stocky build and little to her
credit apart from a fine head of hair. She spoke too much and
very coarsely, dressed dowdily, had little moral reticence or good sense.
She seems to have had an aversion to washing either her person or her
clothes. Consequently she smelled. When Princess Caroline
arrived at St James' Palace the Prince of Wales came to visit her.
After greeting her, he turned to the Earl of Malmesbury saying, "Harris,
I am not well. Pray get me a glass of brandy". He then
left the room. Caroline's comment to Malmesbury was , "I
find him very stout and by no means as handsome as his portrait".
The ill-matched pair were married on 8 April 1795 and it soon became
clear that the Prince of Wales would not tolerate his wife's company
unless he was drunk. The marriage was consummated and on 7 January
1796 a daughter, Charlotte, was born to the couple. By March,
the proud parents were living separately and rarely spoke to each other.
By May, Caroline was living in a separate establishment; after 1798
she lived in Montague House, Blackheath. Among her visitors were
Spencer Perceval and George Canning . The Princess of Wales soon
gathered an embryo court around her; its pursuits were rowdy, boisterous
and frequently they were indiscreet. Her flirtatious manner worried
some ministers but public opinion remained indulgent. People were
sympathetic to the princess who had been left lonely and neglected by
her selfish husband who maintained his relationship with Maria Fitzherbert
and at least one mistress.
However, rumours about scandalous events at Montague House began to
circulate. Lady Douglas alleged that Caroline had admitted to
having had an illegitimate child who was known as William Austin.
A Royal Commission was established to examine the allegations and completed
its work in the summer of 1805. Caroline was cleared of the gravest
charge of adultery but her behaviour in other respects was open to 'very
unfavourable interpretations'. It wasfound that she had "romped
familiarly" with a number of naval officers: a servant had once
fainted on seeing her immodest dallying with Admiral Sir Sidney Smith;
there was evidence that her conversation was littered with sexual innuendo.
George III was principally offended by the numbers of men who had enjoyed
Caroline’s favours: he could never condone profligacy on such
a scale. A royal reprimand was drafted, and it was intimated to the
Princess of Wales that the King had no intention of receiving her at
Court. Yet she did not entirely fall from grace. Within a year Spencer
Perceval became Chancellor of the Exchequer and insisted on an outward
reconciliation between the King and the Princess and apartments were
assigned to Caroline in Kensington Palace. For some years Caroline’s
behaviour showed greater restraint.
The "Delicate Investigation" did not provide the Prince of
Wales with such damning evidence of his wife’s immorality that
he could rid himself of her. The whole episode lowered him still further
in public regard. To many it seemed monstrous that his wife should be
arraigned for lapses which appeared less grave than his own. The Prince
was mocked and lampooned, and he resented the attacks upon him.
As his popularity waned, so Caroline's increased. In 1814 the Whigs
demanded that her allowance should be increased; on 30 June she was
accorded an annual grant of £50,000 Her response was that
she would be happy to accept £35,000 so as to ease the taxpayers'
burden. Then she left for a period of residence abroad on the
grounds that since the English Court would not give her the honours
due to a Princess of Wales, she was content to be 'Caroline, a happy
merry soul'.
Soon after her arrival in Europe, Caroline had appointed Bartolomeo
Pergami as her secretary. He was an obscure Italian veteran of
Napoleon's Russian campaign ; he encouraged her to buy a villa on the
shores of Lake Como and became her constant companion. The pair
travelled widely: Italy, the German lands, the Greek islands, Constantinople,
Jericho and Jerusalem. There were reports of Caroline's scandalous
behaviour: sleeping under a tent on the deck of a polacca; posing for
a portrait with 'her person much exposed'; driving through Genoa in
a gown that had a low-cut bodice and short white skirt, with a pink
hat covered in pink feathers (she was fat and 50 by this time); her
adulterous relationship with Pergami.
In August 1818 the Prince of Wales appointed a three-man commission
to investigate his wife's activities. Lord Liverpool's government
was reluctant to advise the Prince to begin proceedings for a divorce
for a number of reasons: ministers feared that any apparent persecution
of Caroline would lead to a reaction in her favour, particularly from
among the Whigs they were uncertain over the legal form any action might
take for the offences had occurred on foreign soil and Pergami was not
subject to English law. Had he been British, he would have been
guilty of High Treason, which carried the death penalty the Tories could
not rely on back-bench support if there was a wave of sympathy for the
Princess.
The only people who overtly supported Caroline were Henry Brougham and
his brother James. James went to Milan while the Commission was
at work and Caroline said that she was prepared to remain abroad and
not claim her rank as Queen Consort when Prince George succeeded to
the throne, provided
* she received a satisfactory money grant
* she was not divorced
* she was not subjected to any parliamentary proceedings that attempted
to prove her an adulteress
On 29 January 1820, George III died and his son became King George IV.
This meant that Caroline was now Queen Consort and that posed immediate
questions: How was the prayer for the Royal Family to be worded in the
Anglican liturgy?
What part, if any, should Caroline play in the coronation ceremonies?
What advice should be given to foreign courts discreetly enquiring about
the honours they should accord Caroline in her travels?
The King said that both Church and State should ignore the existence
of a Queen Consort while the government found a speedy method of divorce;
the Cabinet insisted that they could not introduce a Bill of Divorce
without evidence being heard by judges in an ecclesiastical court and
that if the Queen decided to fight for her rights it was likely that
‘recriminations of every kind’ would be made. It was
left unsaid that George's subjects would be treated to unedifying
details of his relations with Maria Fitzherbert, Lady Jersey, Lady Hertford
and the remainder of his long line of mistresses. Eventually he was
persuaded to agree to Liverpool's suggestion that Caroline be granted
an annuity payable only so long as she remained abroad and on the understanding
that her name would be omitted from the prayer-book and that she would
not expect to be crowned.
Caroline chose to return to England to claim her rights, requesting
that the Royal Yacht be made ready at Calais to receive her on 3 June.
The request was refused; Caroline arrived in England on 5 June to a
great welcome. On 7 June Alderman Wood - who twice had been
the Lord Mayor of London - greeted Caroline outside the city; she was
cheered over Westminster Bridge and, as her carriage passed Carlton
House, the sentries presented arms. Caroline shouted, "Long
live the King".
At the end of June 1820 the government prepared a Bill of Pains and
Penalties - a method of using the machinery of Parliament to establish
wrongs without resort to the formal proofs essential in a court of law.
If the Bill had passed through parliament and received the royal assent,
it would have deprived "Her Majesty Caroline Amelia Elizabeth ...
of the title of Queen" and declared her marriage to George IV "for
ever wholly dissolved, annulled and made void". The proceedings
lasted for eleven weeks. They were strictly limited to the alleged
relationship between Caroline and Pergami in the hope that there would
be no opportunity for Henry Brougham (the Queen's attorney-general)
to discredit the King or raise questions concerning Maria Fitzherbert.
Virtually every Peer, bishop and judge was required to attend the trial
held in an annex to the House of Lords. Caroline was allowed to
be there, but not to give evidence. Her daily journeys to the
court were turned into Royal Progresses, the crowds hailing her as she
passed. The evidence against the Queen was circumstantial and,
although few people thought her to be innocent, many of those at the
trial disliked the whole procedure. This dislike became clear
when the hearing ended and the Bill was put to parliament. On 6 November
a vote was taken in the Lords on the second reading of the Bill; the
government majority was 28 votes; on 10 November the majority fell to
nine votes on the third reading. Liverpool knew that this was
a defeat and withdrew the Bill rather than risk a full debate in the
House of Commons. Parliament was prorogued for two weeks until
the political situation was clarified.
There was rejoicing in London and the Queen was popular for two weeks.
On 29 November she attended a service at St Paul's Cathedral to give
thanks for her deliverance from her enemies. The cathedral was
half empty and the incumbent refused to insert any special intention
in the General Thanksgiving; Caroline was not mentioned once during
the service and when she left the cathedral the organist played a series
of variations on the National Anthem as the recessional.
The coronation of George IV had been rescheduled for 19 July 1821; the
king applied all his skills of showmanship to planning the event.
His only worry was that the Queen might make a scene. Early in
May she had written to Liverpool to ask what 'ladies of high rank' would
carry her train and 'what dresses his Majesty would desire her to wear'.
She had taken her husband's refusal to give her any place in the ceremony
very badly. On coronation day she drove to the Abbey and tried
to gain admittance at every door but was turned away because she did
not have a ticket. Her activities provoked hostility from the
crowd; she was hooted and hissed until she left.
On 30 July Caroline began to suffer from severe abdominal pains while
attending a performance at Drury Lane theatre. She was taken home
but by the end of the week it was clear that she would not survive.
She died on the evening of 7 August but there were immediate problems
with her funeral because she had expressed a wish to be buried in Germany
and to have engraved on her coffin the simple inscription, "Caroline
of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England". George IV proposed
that her body should be taken down river to the Nore on a state barge
and put onto a warship to be taken to Germany. The Admiralty had
no suitable ship so the Queen's body was taken to Harwich where a ship
was waiting. The funeral procession was to avoid central London
and the City: the whole affair was bungled; a mob of demonstrators forced
the procession to turn down Tottenham Court Road and follow a route
to Temple Bar where the Lord Mayor "paid honour to the Queen's
remains". During the disturbances and rioting, one man was
killed. Finally, Queen Caroline left England for the last time.
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