Read Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court Online
Authors: Lucy Worsley
Tags: #England, #History, #Royalty
So Prince Frederick, Princess Augusta and their servants prepared to leave St James’s Palace for the last time, their clothes hurriedly tossed into wicker laundry baskets rather than being properly packed.
125
The soldier on gate duty was one among the many who found themselves torn in two at the sight. He’d been
ordered by his captain ‘not to salute the Prince on his departure (for the King had given that command)’. He would have saluted anyway, had not the eagle eye of his captain been ‘particularly on him’. The salute was left unmade while ‘the tears trickled’ down his cheeks.
126
Now George II deployed exactly the same weapons against his son as his own father had used in earlier years. Prince Frederick’s cohort of official guards was withdrawn, so that he and Princess Augusta were forced to creep out of the house ‘like private people’, with a mere footman to attend them.
127
During the preceding quarrel, George II had retired from St James’s to Leicester Fields. Extraordinarily, his son would also eventually settle down in the very same house, earning it the nickname of the ‘pouting-place of princes’.
128
Kew Gardens also became a more frequent rural residence for the prince.
But there was one big difference between the quarrels of 1717 and 1737. Despite his numerous supporters, Prince Frederick was never remotely likely to win a popularity contest against his father. George II and Caroline were considerably more beloved by their subjects than George I had been.
Frederick may have had wit, charm, a healthy young family and the prospect of great future power, yet he lost something immensely valuable by his rash act: his reputation. His good qualities were now submerged beneath the deluge of condemnation that was poured upon him for his selfish insubordination. As a result of this, history would come to remember him as a failure, hated by his parents, damned by the poisonous pen of John Hervey.
Yet weak, foolish Frederick – appropriately nicknamed ‘Poor Fred’ by historians – was really something of a victim. He felt forced by his parents’ revulsion into taking this desperate step, but in doing so he only confirmed their low opinion of him.
As the weeks turned into months, though, Frederick began to think regretfully about the wrong turns taken in his relationship with his mother. Perhaps having a child of his own made him begin to take a more tolerant view of his parents’ behaviour. Slowly, secretly but surely, he started longing to see Caroline once again.
But the period of time left for any possible reconciliation to take place was shorter than anyone could have guessed.
1
. Halsband (1965–7), Vol. 2, p. 476, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her husband (2 March 1751).
2
. Brooke (1985), Vol. 1, p. 51.
3
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 37.
4
. Duchess of Marlborough to the second Earl of Stair (17 August 1737), quoted in Cunningham (1857), Vol. 1, p. cxlix.
5
. Robert Halsband,
Lord Hervey, Eighteenth-Century Courtier
(Oxford, 1973), p. 28.
6
. Hervey (1894), Vol. 2, p. 41, his father to John Hervey (14 December 1716).
7
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 874.
8
. Halsband (1965–7), Vol. 1, pp. 286–7, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to the Countess of Bristol, Hanover (25 November 1716).
9
. Hervey (1894), Vol. 3, p. 29, Lady Bristol to Lord Bristol (7 January 1729).
10
. Holland (1846), Vol. 1, p. 77.
11
. Wilkins (1901), Vol. 1, p. 90.
12
. ‘The Griff … was a nickname the King had long ago given the Prince’, Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 804; see Sir George Young,
Poor Fred, the People’s
Prince
(London, 1937), pp. 8–9; but for a refutation of Young see also Frances Vivian,
A Life of Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–1751),
Ed. Roger White (Lewiston, 2006), pp. 14–15.
13
. Matthew Kilburn, ‘Frederick Lewis, prince of Wales (1707–1751)’,
Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford, 2004).
14
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 559.
15
. RA GEO/MAIN/54227, Frederick, Prince of Wales, ‘Instructions for my Son George’.
16
. Coxe (1798b), Vol. 1, p. 522.
17
. Thomson (1943), p. 86, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Diana, Duchess of Bedford (3 January 1733).
18
. SRO 941/48/1, p. 49, Mary Hervey to the Reverend Edmund Morris (24 March 1744).
19
. BL Sloane MS 4076, f. 98r.
20
. Tobias Smollett,
The History of England from the Revolution to the Death of
George the Second
(London, 1848 edn), Vol. 3, p. 62.
21
. Rosenthal (1970), p. 135.
22
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 1, p. 306.
23
.
Ibid.
, Vol. 2, p. 504.
24
. George Hastings Wheler (Ed.),
Hastings Wheler Family Letters
1704–1739
(West Yorkshire, 1935), p. 153, Lady Catherine Jones (24 December 1737).
25
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 371.
26
. Pöllnitz (1737), Vol. 1, p. 64.
27
. Romney Sedgwick (Ed.),
Letters from George III to Lord Bute,
1756–1766
(London, 1939), p. 259.
28
. Brooke (1985), Vol. 1, p. 116.
29
.
Ibid.
, Vol. 3, p. 121.
30
. RA GEO/MAIN/53039.
31
. Cannon (2004).
32
. HMC
Polwarth
, Vol. 1 (London, 1911), p. 112 (19 October 1716).
33
. Quoted in Greenwood (1909), Vol. 1, p. 228.
34
.
Daily Post
, No. 2873 (5 December 1728).
35
. Verney (1930), Vol. 2, p. 139 (April 1736).
36
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, pp. 550–1.
37
. Cartwright (1883), p. 522.
38
. Stella Tillyard,
A Royal Affair, George III and his Troublesome Siblings
(London, 2006), p. 7.
39
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 493.
40
.
The Gentleman’s Magazine
, Vol. 5.6 (April 1736), p. 230.
41
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 550.
42
. HMC
Carlisle
, appendix, part 6, p. 167, Lady A. Irwin to Lord Carlisle (April 1736).
43
. Cartwright (1883), p. 522.
44
.
The Gentleman’s Magazine
, Vol. 5.6 (April 1736), p. 231.
45
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 553.
46
.
Read’s Weekly Journal Or British Intelligencer
(8 May 1736), issue 609.
47
.
The Gentleman’s Magazine
, Vol. 8 (November 1738), p. 603.
48
. Duchess of Marlborough quoted in Averyl Edwards,
Frederick Lewis, Prince of
Wales
(London, 1947), p. 60.
49
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 564.
50
.
Ibid.
, p. 613.
51
. Ilchester (1950), pp. 258–9.
52
. Gaunt and Knight (1988–9), Vol. 2, p. 488.
53
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, pp. 868–9
54
. Morris Marples,
Poor Fred and the Butcher, Sons of George II
(London, 1970), p. 18.
55
. BL Add MS 24407, ‘Kew Book’ containing accounts of Frederick, Prince of Wales for Kew; Vivian (2006), pp. 134–5.
56
. Mowl (2006), p. 109.
57
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 628.
58
.
The Daily Gazetteer
(2 October 1736), quoted in Wilkins (1901), Vol. 2, pp.305–6.
59
. HMC
Egmont
(1923), Vol. 2, p. 325.
60
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 628.
61
. HMC
Egmont
(1923), Vol. 2, p. 10.
62
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, pp. 662, 670, 681.
63
.
Ibid.
, Vol. 2, p. 615.
64
.
Ibid.
, pp. 615, 617–18.
65
. Halsband (1973), p. 138.
66
. Halsband and Grundy (1977), p. 261
67
. HMC
Egmont
(1920), Vol. 1, p. 208 (1731).
68
. Ralph Trumbach, ‘Modern Sodomy: The Origins of Homosexuality,1700–1800’, in Matt Cock (Ed.),
A Gay History of Britain
(Oxford, 2007), pp. 77–105.
69
. Misson (1719), p. 24.
70
. Anon.,
Plain Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy in England
(London, 1728).
71
. SRO 941/47/4, p. 295, John Hervey to Ste Fox (26 August 1731).
72
.
Ibid.
, p. 53, John Hervey to Ste Fox (1 June 1727).
73
. Anon.,
Plain Reasons
(1728), p. 14.
74
. SRO 941/47/4, p. 98, John Hervey to Ste Fox (22 November 1729).
75
.
Ibid.
, the first thirteen pages have been cut out.
76
. Lewis (1937–83), Vol. 33, p. 156 (3 January 1780).
77
. SRO 941/47/1, Frederick, Prince of Wales to John Hervey (n.d.); SRO 941/47/4, p. 207, John Hervey to Frederick, Prince of Wales (16 July 1731); Hannah Smith and Stephen Taylor, ‘Hephaestion and Alexander: Lord Hervey, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the Royal Favourite in England in the 1730s’,
The English Historical Review
, Vol. CXXIV, No. 507 (2009), pp. 283–312.
78
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 671.
79
. SRO 941/47/4, p. 320, John Hervey to Ste Fox (14 December 1731).
80
.
Ibid.
, p. 165, John Hervey to Ste Fox (31 August 1731).
81
. Quoted in Moore (2000), p. 53.
82
. ‘Introductory Anecdotes’, probably using information from Lady Bute, in Wharncliffe (1837), p. 69.
83
. Thomson (1847), Vol. 2, p. 374, Countess of Pomfret to Lady Sundon (23 September 1735); BL Add MS 75358, Lady Burlington (23 September 1735).
84
. SRO 941/21/2(ii), ‘A Character of Lady Mary Hervey’, f. 1.
85
. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, quoted in Hervey (1931), Vol. 1, p. xvii.
86
. ‘Introductory anecdotes’, probably based on information from Lady Bute, in Wharncliffe (1837), Vol. 1, p. 69; Stuart (1936), p. 127.
87
. Harvey (1994; 2001), p. 134.
88
. William Pulteney,
A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel
(London, 1731), pp. 6–7.
89
. Alexander Pope,
Ethic epistles, satires, & c.
(London, 1735), p. 108.
90
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 562.
91
.
Ibid.
, Vol. 3, p. 757.
92
. Quoted in Grundy (1999), p. 368.
93
.
Weekly Miscellany
, issue CCXLI (5 August 1737), ‘Domestic Occurences’.
94
. BL Add MS 20104, ff. 6–7, Lord Hervey to Mrs Clayton, Hampton Court (31 July 1733).
95
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 2, p. 528.
96
.
Ibid.
, Vol. 3, p. 758.
97
. BL Add MS 75358, Lady Burlington (‘Thursday eight o’clock’, 1737); HMC
Egmont
(1923), Vol. 2, p. 426.
98
. G. H. Rose (Ed.),
A Selection from the papers of the Earls of Marchmont
(London, 1831), Vol. 2, p. 88, Alexander, Earl of Marchmont (13 October 1737).
99
. HMC
Egmont
(1923), Vol. 2, p. 426; BL Add MS 75358, Lady Burlington (‘Thursday 8 o’clock’, 1737).
100
. HMC
Egmont
(1923) Vol. 2, p. 425.
101
.
Ibid.
, pp. 425–6; Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 758.
102
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 759.
103
. Walpole,
Reminiscences
(1818 edn), p. 95.
104
. HMC
Egmont
(1923), Vol. 2, p. 425.
105
. BL Add MS 75358, Lady Burlington (‘Thursday eight o’clock’, 1737).
106
. Holland (1846), Vol. 1, p. 74.
107
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 758.
108
.
Ibid.
, p. 759.
109
. Holland (1846), Vol. 1, p. 74.
110
. Hervey (1931), Vol. 3, p. 759