Alison Plowden - Caroline and Charlotte: Regency Scandals

Says the King to the Prince, You know you are deeply in debt, Sir;

A wife you must take tis vain to bounce and fret, Sir,

Youd better send to Germany to fetch some pretty cousin,

There Highnesses Serene you may have by the dozen,

And you shall marry

Your Cousin Cousin Cary.

The Prince replied, Good Father, if youll but find the money,

Ill take whom you please, and she shall be my Honey;

Theres Caroline of Brunswick will give her pretty hand,

If youll but pay my debts, Ill take her at command,

And with all my heart Ill marry

My Cousin Cousin Cary.

Should I pay your debts, the King said, I should be much to blame, Sir;

Theres Clarence, and theres York would quickly want the same, Sir;

John Bull will discharge them, you never need to doubt it;

So een take your Wife and Ill speak to Pitt about it.

And so you shall marry

Your Cousin, Cousin Cary.

T he morning of Wednesday 1 April 1795 found the naval squadron escorting Caroline of Brunswick to England for her marriage to the Prince of Wales fogbound in the North Sea about eight leagues offshore between Orfordness and Yarmouth. It was not until the early hours of Friday 3 April Good Friday that the weather cleared, and Commodore Jack Payne was able to get the frigate Jupiter under way again and sail on down the coast before a brisk east-south-east wind, passing Harwich at eleven oclock. That night was spent at anchor off the Nore, and on Saturday the flotilla entered the Thames estuary, reaching Gravesend at two in the afternoon. The river banks were lined with spectators, the day was fine and the whole prospect most beautiful at least according to the account of James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury, on board the Jupiter.

Lord Malmesbury, who had had the task of fetching the bride from Germany plus the anxiety of conveying her across a corner of Europe currently under threat of attack by the conquering armies of revolutionary France, was understandably euphoric in anticipation of being able to deliver his charge safely into the arms of her groom, but the long-term prospects for the success of the union were not encouraging.

George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son and heir apparent of George III, King of England, was thirty-two years old and, on paper at any rate, the most eligible bachelor in the western world. His attitude towards matrimony, however, had always been disappointingly negative. Indeed, some ten years earlier he had sworn that he would never marry. He had settled it with Frederick Duke of York and his next favourite brother that Frederick would marry and that the crown would descend to his children. But Fredericks wife had turned out to be barren, and the other princes were now all either comfortably suited with mistresses, or for other reasons unwilling or unable to do their duty by the family. George IIIs plain sturdy little Queen (she had been Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz) had survived no fewer than fifteen pregnancies and successfully reared seven sons and five daughters, but the remarkable fact remained that by 1795 there were still no grandchildren or at least no grandchildren born on the right side of the blanket. It was not, however, concern for the future of the Hanoverian succession which had finally propelled the Prince of Wales towards the altar it was stern financial necessity.

The scandal of the Princes debts was an old story. His income from the Civil List, supplemented by the relatively modest revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, had never been anything like enough to support his ample life-style as a bon viveur, aspiring glass of fashion, racing man, connoisseur, collector, and patron of the arts probably no income ever would have been enough to satisfy the needs of so dedicated and proficient a spender of money and there had been something of a showdown back in 1787. Parliament had then had to be persuaded to settle the most pressing of his Royal Highnesss obligations, and his Civil List allowance had been raised by 10,000 to 60,000 a year. But early in 1794 another crisis loomed, as once again the Princes debts approached a staggering six-figure sum. Ungrateful tradesmen were beginning to refuse his custom, and he was being dunned in the street by his creditors, some of whom went so far as to petition the Prime Minister for relief. Clearly another rescue operation would have to be mounted, but it was equally clear that this time John Bull, as represented by an increasingly unsympathetic House of Commons, would first demand some earnest of reform from the prodigal. That summer, therefore, the Prince of Wales went to see his father and abruptly informed him that he was now ready to enter a more creditable line of life, to get married and settle down.

Surprised but pleased, the King stipulated only that his sons wife must be a Protestant and a princess, which inevitably meant a German princess, and offered to send some suitable confidential person on a talent-spotting expedition. But it seemed that the Prince had already made up his mind to throw the handkerchief in the direction of his cousin Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbttel. King George was thought to disapprove of marriages between such close relations Caroline was his niece and he continued to urge his son to make particular enquiries about her person and manners. Nevertheless he could not help feeling complimented that his sisters child should have been thus singled out and told William Pitt that she was the person who naturally must be most agreeable to me. The Queen, on the other hand, remained noticeably tight-lipped, telling her son Ernest that she was resolved never to speak about the marriage, so that no one should say she had any hand in anything. She had never cared for Carolines mother, she went on, but she would make the princess welcome and hoped, though plainly without conviction, that the couple would be happy. It has been suggested that her attitude was due to pique that her own niece, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had been passed over. The explanation more probably lies in the fact that Queen Charlotte had heard some very disturbing reports about the Princess Caroline: that her governess had to stick closely to her side at dances in order to prevent her from making an exhibition of herself by having indecent conversations with men; that her parents had forbidden her to speak to anyone at all except her governess; that all amusements had had to be banned because of her unbridled passions and generally indecent conduct.