Princess, or rather he, (Mr. Whitbread,) in her name, called on that House, the Representatives of the people of England-to become the protectors of an innocent, traduced, and defenceless stranger-the mother of their future Queen." The motion was negatived, but the people caught the honourable enthusiasm, and the Livery of London spoke out on "the indignation and abhorrence with which they viewed the foul conspiracy against the honour and life of her Royal Highness, and their admiration of her moderation, frankness, and magnanimity under her long persecution." At length the necessity of bringing out the Princess Charlotte became absolute; and the Queen contrived to announce two drawing-rooms, informing the Princess of Wales that at only one of these would she be allowed to be present. Thus it was hoped to prevent a rencontre between the Prince and Princess in the presence of the illustrious visiters. The Princess, however, wrote to the Queen, that she intended to be present at both. This avowal brought a letter from her Majesty, stating that her son, the Prince Regent, had communicated to her that he had "considered his own presence at the court, before the foreign Emperors, not to be dispensed with; and that he desired it to be understood, for reasons of which he alone could be the judge, to be his fixed and unalterable determination not to meet the Princess of Wales upon any occasion, either public or private. The Princess remonstrated with the Queen-but in vain. Neither of the foreign potentates, nor any of their suite or officers, visited her Royal Highness while they were in England, although the Emperor of Russia expressed his willingness to do so, and was restrained only by the information, that his noticing her Royal -Highness would be personally offensive to the Regent.* The Princess next addressed a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons on the subject, in which she inclosed the correspondence to which the intimation of Queen Charlotte had given rise. One of the documents read to the House, a letter to the Prince, had the following paragraph: *The Emperor and his distinguished companions could not, however, have mistaken the loud expression of the public opinion of the Prince's conduct towards his wife; neither could the Prince himself have been insensible to the distinct marks of disapprobation that were directed towards his Royal Highness, whenever he appeared in public with the illustrious visiters. We well remember the deafening discord with which the Prince was received on his way to dine with the Corporation of London at Guildhall. "Sir-The time you have selected for this proceeding, is calculated to make it peculiarly galling. Many illustrious strangers are already arrived in England; amongst others, as I am informed, the illustrious Heir of the House of Orange, who has announced himself to me as my future son-in-law. From their society I am unjustly excluded. Others are expected, of rank equal to your own, to rejoice with your Royal Highness in the peace of Europe. My daughter will, for the first time, appear in the splendour and publicity becoming the approaching nuptials of the presumptive heiress of this empire. This season your Royal Highness has chosen for treating me with fresh and unprovoked indignity; and, of all his Majesty's subjects, I alone am prevented by your Royal Highness from appearing in my place to partake of the general joy, and am deprived of indulgence in those feelings of pride and affection permitted to every mother but me." Many fine manly sentiments were delivered in the Princess' favour on this occasion, though it was painful to perceive them intimately mixed up with political feeling. The Prince's advocates took high ground, and repeated their hackneyed aguments, till, at length, the question took the character of a pecuniary provision, and the House voted the Princess 50,000l. per annum, but of which she refused to receive more than 35,000l. on account of the great national distress which was then prevalent. THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. A singular instance of the young Princess' affection for her mother occurred about this time. The Prince discovered that, notwithstanding his prohibitions, frequent communications passed between the Princess and her mother. On July 12, he accordingly suddenly appeared at Warwick House, and informed the young Princess that she must immediately take up her abode at Carlton House and Cranbourn Lodge, and that five young ladies were in the next room ready to accompany her to the latter place. The Princess made many spirited remonstrances, but in vain; she suddenly pretended a compliance, and only asked permission to retire for a few minutes; which, being granted, whilst the Prince was in earnest conversation with Miss Knight, she slipped out of the house, and, getting into a hackney-coach in Cockspur-street, gave the coachman a guniea to drive to her mother's at Connaught-place. The Prince Regent was highly incensed at this conduct, and the confusion at Warwick House was beyond description, for the flight of the young Princess in a fit of passion, was the only fact of which any body was certain; where she had gone to, and what was the object of her flight, were merely matters of painful surmise. At length the probability of her having repaired to her mother at Connaught-place was suggested, and the old infirm Archbishop of Canterbury was dispatched to bring her back. Sicard, an old servant of the Princess, bolted the hall door against the prelate, who returned to Warwick House, to relate the failure of his mission. The Duke of York was next dispatched to bring back the fair fugitive vi et armis. A very spirited scene took place, in which the juvenile militant would have triumphed over the Field Marshal of England, had not Mr. Brougham told her, that the latter had the law on his side, and that the lady must obey the laws. The gallant Duke then bore back his prize in triumph. Tired with so many fruitless assertions of her parental right, the Princess of Wales, shortly after this, left England for the Continent, though against the advice of Mr. Whitbread, and all her political friends, except Mr. Canning, who strongly approved of her leaving England. She sailed August 9, 1814, and landed at Hamburgh, with ten ladies and gentlemen in her suite. Abroad she travelled under the title of Countess of Cornwall. The Royal Family were now tranquillized; but the Prince foresaw much disagreement with his daughter; and it is well known that the final breach between the Princess Charlotte and the Prince of Orange arose from the latter informing her, that in the event of her marriage, her mother would be prohibited visiting her. The subsequent marriage of the Princess Charlotte with the Prince of Saxe-Coburg was not long opposed by the Prince Regent; but was celebrated with great splendour. Its ceremonies, however interesting, would occupy too much space in our pages. The Prince was received at the Pavilion at Brighton, by the Queen, Prince Regent, the Princesses Elizabeth and Mary, and the Princess Charlotte; and, after some delay, the marriage took place at Carlton House, May 2, 1816. THE PRINCE'S DEBTS. A few days after the attention of Parliament was again drawn to the expensive habits of the Prince of Wales, through whose profusion the Civil List was con stantly in arrear. The exertions of Mr. Tierney to introduce something like economy in the different departments were incessant. On May 6, Mr. T. animadverted with great severity on the expenditure of fifty thousand pounds for furniture at Brighton immediately after five hundred and thirty-four thousand pounds were voted for covering the Excess of the Civil List. "He lamented," he said, "that his Royal Highness was surrounded by advisers who precipitated him into such profusion. At his time of life something different ought to be expected. But there were those about him who encouraged and promoted those wasteful and frivolous projects." Mr. Brougham, on another occasion, inveighed with great severity against the indifference to the distress of the country manifested by the Prince's profusion. These complaints aggravated the distresses of the people, and in a season of universal complaint, like the present, increased the unpopularity of the Prince Regent. On his way to Parliament, he was grossly insulted by the populace; and towards the close of the year the metropolis became a scene of open riot. DEATH OF SHERIDAN. On July 5 of the same year died the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan, one of the earliest of the Prince's political associates. It is too certain that Sheridan's last days were deeply embittered by the baseness of "friends remembering not." Notwithstanding what has been termed his political fall, it appears that so late as 1815 he enjoyed the confidence of political parties. Mr. Moore says-" There are, in the possession of a friend of Sheridan, copies of a correspondence in which he was engaged this year with two noble lords, and the confidential agent of an illustrious personage, upon a subject, as it appears, of the utmost delicacy and importance. The letters of Sheridan, it is said (for I have not seen them) though of too secret and confidential a nature to meet the public eye, not only prove the great confidence reposed in him by the parties concerned, but show the clearness and manliness of mind which he could still command, under the pressure of all that was most trying to human intellect." The Prince was at this time much blamed for his want of liberality to Sheridan, and that too in his last moments. A friend of Sheridan's, Mr. Vaughan, a few days before the states. man's death proffered the loan of £200 which Mrs. Sheridan declined. "Mr. Vaughan always said, that the donation thus meant to be doled out, came from a royal hand; but this is hardly credible. It would be safer, perhaps, to let the suspicion rest upon that gentleman's memory, of having indulged his own benevolent disposition in this disguise, than to suppose it possible that so scanty and reluctant a benefaction was the sole mark of attention accorded by a Gracious Prince and Master' to the last, death-bed wants of one of the most accomplished and faithful servants, that royalty ever yet raised or ruined by its smiles." An able (but anonymous) writer in the Westminster Review, attempts to exculpate the Prince from this reproach of neglect of Sheridan. Sheridan having, as we have already observed, lost himself with his party and the country, in the dissolution of 1812, lost his political consequence and his parliamentary protection. The Prince Regent, however, about the latter end of 1812, conveyed to him, through Lord Moira, four thousand pounds, in order that he might buy a seat. The money was deposited with Mr. Cocker, the Solicitor, and a treaty was opened for Wooton Basset. "On three successive evenings," says the writer in the Review, "Mr. Cocker dined with Sheridan at a hotel in Albemarle-street, a chaise being on each night waiting at the door to convey them to Wooton Basset; on each night, Sheridan, after his wine, postponed the journey to the next day, and on the fourth day he altogether abandoned the project of purchasing a seat in Parliament, received the £4,000 and applied, that sum, as he was warranted to do, by the permission of the donor, to his private uses. This transaction certainly relieves the King from the reproach of not having ministered to the relief of Sheridan-a charge which has been urged against his Majesty in numberless smart satires and lampoons.' Yet, this does not explain the neglect of Sheridan in his last moments. One of his latest letters to Mr. Whitbread was written from a lock-up house, which, observes Mr. Moore, "formed a sad contrast to those princely halls, of which he had so lately been the most brilliant and favoured guest, and which were possibly, at that very moment, lighted up and crowded with gay company, unmindful of him within those prison walls." Sheridan's funeral was, however, at tended by a phalanx of dukes, mar* Moore's Life of Sheridan, vol. ii. quesses, earls, viscounts, barons, ho nourables, and right honourables, princes of the blood royal, and first officers of state. Upon this idle, not to say insulting parade, Mr. Moore indignantly says, "Where were they all, these royal and noble persons, who now crowded 'to partake the gale' of Sheridan's glory; where were they all, but a few weeks before, when their interposition might have saved his heart from breaking-or when the zeal, now wasted on the grave, might have soothed and comforted the death-bed? This is a subject on which it is difficult to speak with patience. If the man was unworthy of the commonest offices of humanity, why all this parade of regret and homage over his tomb ?" We would not stain the memory of Sheridan's illustrious friend with the charge of this unjust desertion; expecially as it is so much at variance with his innumerable acts of generosity. In some minds, however, generosity often gets the start of justice. The reader must be left, in this case, to draw his own inference; since, "he that calls a man ungrateful, sums up all the evil that a man can be guilty of."* Within these few days the following anecdote, illustrative of great sensibility on the part of the Prince, has appeared in print.t RETIRED LIFE OF THE PRINCE. The habits of the Prince Regent were now those of self enjoyment-the otium cum dignitate of royalty, with very little * Swift. Nearly forty years ago, his late Majesty, then Prince of Wales, was so exceedingly urgent to have £800. at an hour on such a day, and in so nished the supply had some curiosity to know unusual a manner, that the gentleman who fur. for what purpose it was obtained. On inquiry. he was informed that the moment the money arrived, the Prince drew on a pair of boots, pulled off his coat and waistcoat, slipped on a plain morning frock, without a star, and, turning his hair to the crown of his head, put on a slouched hat, and thus walked out. This intelligence raised still greater curiosity, and with some trouble the gentleman discovered the object of the mysterious visit. An officer of the and six children, in such low circumstances, army had just arrived from America with a wife that, to satisfy some clamorous creditor, he was on the point of selling his commission, to the utter ruin of his family. The Prince, by accident, overheard an account of the case. To prevent a worthy soldier suffering, he procured the money, and, that no mistake might happen, lodging-house, in a court near Covent-Garden, for the lodger, he was shown up to his room, and there found the family in the utmost distress. Shocked at the sight, he not only presented the money, but told the officer to apply to Colonel Lake, living in street, and give some account of himself in future; saying which he departed, without the family knowing to whom they were obliged. carried it himself. On asking at an obscure of publicity; for, at no period of his life was the Prince long fond of what is commonly termed "dropping the King." His visits, except to the Marquesses of Hertford and Conyngham, were few; and his courts and public parties were very infrequent. He courted what La Bruyere thinks the only want of a prince to complete his happiness-" the pleasure of private life; a loss that nothing can compensate but the fidelity of his select friends, and the applause of rejoicing subjects." The "sponging sycophants" of the court give but little of the former, while the lavish expenditure of the Prince gained for him still less of the latter. He occupied his intervals of state business in the superintendence of enlarging and embellishing his different places of residence. Carlton House and the Pavilion at Brighton were altered and re-altered till the artists must only have been reconciled to the royal caprice by its immediate source of profit. On one occasion, a room of Carlton House had been embellished with superb golden eagles, when Sir Edmund Nagle, (with less flattery than royalty usually meets,) reminded the Prince that the eagle was profusely used by Napoleon, in all his decorations, both military and civil. This was conclusive: the eagles were removed. The Pavilion had been entirely remodelled, and fitted up with more regard to show and glitter than good taste. Even the royal stables at Brighton (which had been built several years previous) were provokingly magnificent; utility being sacrificed to show. Their unmeaning glass dome reminds us of a Turkish mosque, and nothing can be less appropriate than their carpenter's Gothic architecture. All this eccentric extravagance justified even the violence of Mr. Tierney's strictures upon the royal expenditure; however à vulgar notion might prevail with some persons, that it benefited the country by furnish ing employment for her artists. Thus, equipages, the decoration of apartments, the modelling and chasing in silver and gold, the setting of jewellery, state dresses, and military uniforms, were submitted to royal scrutiny. DISPUTE BETWEEN THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS. The Prince's disagreement with the Princess of Wales was soon again to be resuscitated. The Princess Charlotte, now become her own mistress, addressed three letters to her royal mother, on the Continent. These letters are described as confidential, and full of the warmth of affection. The writer pledged her determination never, through life, to permit any machinations against the happiness or reputation of her beloved mother. The Prince obtained some knowledge of this correspondence and became very indignant with the writer. The letters were cherished by the mother until her death, when prudently for the peace of all parties, they were destroyed with her other papers, according to her special directions. Meantime, the side-winds of scandal brought many malignant stories to the ear of the Prince Regent, respecting the habits of the Princess of Wales on the Continent. Reports occasionally found their way into the public prints unfavourable to the conduct, if not the reputation, of the Princess; and before the close of the year 1817, a commission was formally appointed to examine into the reports which had been furnished by a Baron Ompteda, charged with watching the Princess. How this vile traffic in scandal was available, will be explained presently. The Prince's hatred of the Princess became implacable. only three of the Royal Family who had evinced the civilities of life towards the Princess of Wales were the King, the Princess Charlotte (both gone to their last home) and the Duke of Sussex; the latter is known to have thereby incurred the hostile feelings of his brother, which were probably never effaced, or, at best, only a few days before the death of the late King. UNPOPULARITY OF THE REGENT. The The Prince had, at different periods of his life, been the object of a strong and almost general unpopularity. It is singular, however, that he could never persuade himself of this, and Mrs. Fitzherbert in particular, has borne testimony to the impossibility of impressing on his mind an idea that he was not the idol of the people. This year, on returning from the House of Lords, (Jan. 28, 1817,) where he had gone to open the Parliament, he met with a series of insults, and witnessed scenes of such outrage and personal attack from the rabble, as materially excited both his surprise and anger. The House of Lords voted a reward of 1,000l. for the discovery of the person who had broken the window of his Majesty's carriage with a stone; and Lord Castlereagh made this popular ebullition the pretence for passing six bills, which rendered the ministry equally unpopular with the Regent. The speech from the throne calculated largely on the ultra-loyalty of the people, but without good cause; for the distress and dissatisfaction throughout the country were unprecedented. The people considered this almost a mockery of their grievances; and the scene on the Prince's return from the House was a comment on the speech, although few concurred in its extreme violence. DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. In 1817, St. George's Day, was selected as the day on which the birth-day of the Prince Regent was to be observed, instead of the 12th of August. A drawing-room was accordingly appointed; but did not take place, in consequence of the sudden indisposition of the Queen on the preceding evening. Her Majesty progressively recovered, and on November 3, following, visited Bath, in the forlorn hope, if not of a recovery of health, at least of an alleviation of pain. On the Thursday morning her Majesty received a loyal address from the Corporation, and about four o'clock arrived a private dispatch from Lord Sidmouth, Secretary of State, announcing that the Princess Charlotte had been safely delivered of a still-born child, "but that her Royal Highness was doing extremely well." The shock was very severe; but at six her Majesty sat down to dinner with her usual company of fourteen persons. During the dinner, she was surprised at General Taylor's suddenly leaving the room, upon a message being whispered to him by a servant. Presently the Countess of Ilchester was called from the table in the same abrupt manner, and the truth struck the Queen's mind, and, suddenly exclaiming, "I know what it is," she fell into a fit. The Queen and her whole party left Bath on Saturday morning, and on the next day, the Prince Regent, in a very private manner, repaired to her at Windsor Castle, where a day of mourning was spent by the Royal Family. The hopes of the nation were now blighted: the Princess had expired at Claremont on the 6th of November, after a very protracted and painful labour. The distress of the Prince Regent could be equalled only by that of the country at large. the first intelligence threw him into a paroxysm, which rendered it necessary to bleed him twice, besides cupping. To the anguish of his mind, no skill could afford relief. Private sorrow and political anxiety pervaded all ranks of the nation. The lamentable intelligence was dispatched to the Princess of Wales, then in Italy the sudden shock, with a re Na trospect of the cruel manner in which she had been separated from her only daughter, occasioned her much bitter suffering. As a tribute of affection, she raised a cenotaph to her memory, in her garden of Pesaro. Her melancholy increased even amid the splendid charms of Italian scenery: clear skies and golden sunsets, and the picturesque haunts of wood and grove, and rocky shore, could afford no resting place for her sorrow; and from this period, absence strengthened affection, and her desire to visit England, and wail over the grave of her child, became redoubled. ture would have it so; for the child became endeared to the mother by the trials and long suffering which she had endured on her account; and the fondness which the young Princess had shown for her exiled parent, even amidst the scorns and frowns of her royal father. The bereaved mother refused to be comforted: writing to Lady - in England, she says, " England I now sigh to visit. Over the tomb of my dear Charlotte I long to weep, again and again to weep. Such was the plaintiveness of her lament. INCOME OF THE ROYAL DUKES. At this period, the Prince Regent was particularly desirous to augment the incomes of his royal brothers, except the Duke of Sussex, and on the 15th April, 1818, Lord Castlereagh proposed that a bonus of one year's income should be given to each of the Princes, and that their incomes should be raised, the Duke of Clarence's by £22,000 a-year, and the Dukes of Kent, Cumberland, and Cambridge by £12,000 a-year each. Such was the will of the Regent, but even an indignant feeling was expressed by members on the occasion, and the grants were reduced to £10,000., to the Duke of Clarence, and £6,000 a-year to the three junior dukes. But on a division of 193 to 184, the Duke of Clarence's augmentation was put on a level with that of his brothers, and which latter were carried by a very small ma jority, while the allowance to the Duke of Cumberland was negatived by a majority of 143 to 136. This spirited resistance of the Commons of England, occasioned much chagrin to the Prince Regent. These grants originated in the mar riages of three Royal Dukes, Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge, which took place this year. The marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Prince of Hesse Homberg, had been celebrated a few months previously. |