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Atlas of General Surgery 4th Edition Sir David Carter
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Sir David Carter
ISBN(s): 9789350250648, 9350250640
Edition: 4
File Details: PDF, 332.43 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english
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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 Maria Louisa was not the only unhusbanded wife whom the
wandering Princess encountered in Switzerland. The divorced wife of
the Grand Duke Constantine was of this illustrious society. This lady
was the Juliana of Saxe-Coburg who, on marrying the Russian
Prince, took for her new appellation the name of Anna Feodorowna,
and who was so rejoiced to lay that name down again after she had
escaped from the brutalities of her husband. The Countess of
Cornwall looked upon her with more than ordinary interest, for she
was the sister of that Prince Leopold who ultimately married the
Princess Charlotte, and whose aspiring hopes were known to, and
sanctioned by, the wandering ‘Countess’ herself. The presence in one
spot of three princesses, all separated from their then living
husbands, had something as singular in it as the meeting of
Voltaire’s unsceptred kings at the table-d’hôte at Venice. The ex-
Empress was separated from her husband because she did not care
to share his fallen fortunes; the Grand Duchess was living alone
because the Grand Duke did not care for his wife; and the other lady
and her husband had the ocean between them because they heartily
hated each other—three sufficient reasons to unite the triad of
wanderers within the territories of the Swiss republic.
In October, the Countess of Cornwall, or Princess of Wales, as it
will be more convenient to call her, had passed into the imperial city
of Milan. Her passage had something of a triumphant aspect; she
reviewed the troops drawn up in honour of her visit, smiled at the
shouts of welcome, mingled with cries for the liberty of Italy, which
greeted her, and endured the noisy homage uttered by a dozen
bouches à feu. She had now but one English lady in her suite, Lady
Charlotte Lindsey having resigned her office when in Germany.
It was at Milan that her suite first began to assume a foreign
aspect. The Princess was about to enter on a wide course of travel,
and it was said that she needed the services of those who had had
experience in that way. The first and most celebrated official
engaged to help her with his service was a Bartholomew Bergami, a
handsome man, of an impoverished family, who had served in the
army as private courier to General Count Pino (bearer of his
despatches, it is to be presumed), had received the decoration of
some ‘order,’ and—whether by right of an acre or two of land
belonging to his family, or because of his merits—bore the high-
sounding name, but not very exalted dignity, of ‘Il Signor Barone.’ He
had three sisters, all of whom were respectably married; the eldest
and best known was a Countess Oldi, a true Italian lady, who loved
and hated with equal intensity.
At Milan, as at Geneva, the Princess, undoubtedly, failed to leave
a favourable impression of her character. At the latter place the sight
of herself and the great Sismondi, both stout, and the former attired
as the Queen of Love, waltzing together, was a spectacle quite
sufficient to make the beholders what, it is said, the Princess herself
would have called, ‘all over shock.’ Then she insisted on undue
homage from her attendants, and made such confusion in the
geographical programme of her travels ‘that it was enough,’ as she
herself used to say on other occasions, ‘to die for laugh.’
On the progress of the Princess through Italy her English
attendants fell off, one by one, till she was finally left without a
single member of her suite with whom she had originally set out.
They probably ventured to give her some good advice, for she
complained of their tyranny. They certainly counselled her to return
and live quietly in England; but this counsel was always under
consideration, yet never followed by the result desired. She was
rendered peevish, too, by receiving no letters from her daughter, of
whom she had taken but brief and hurried leave previous to her
departure from England.
Meanwhile, she traversed Italy from Milan to Naples, and was
everywhere received with great distinction. In the little states the
minor potentates did their poor but hearty best to exhibit their
sympathy. The crownless sovereigns, like those of Spain and Etruria,
condoled with her. At Rome the very head of the faithful stooped to
imprint a kiss or whisper a word of welcome to the wandering lady.
After a week of lionising at Rome she proceeded to Naples, where
Murat received her with the splendour and ostentation which marked
all his acts. He had a guest who was quite as demonstrative as her
host. Court and visitor seemed to vie with each other in
extravagance of display. Fêtes and festivals succeeded each other
with confusing rapidity, and never had Parthenope seen a lady so
given to gaiety, or so closely surrounded by spies, so narrowly
watched, and so abundantly reported, as this indiscreet Princess. It
was at Naples that she appeared at a masked ball attired as the
Genius of History, and accompanied, it is said, by Bergami. She
changed her dress as often as Mr. Ducrow in one of his ‘daring acts;’
and, finally, she enacted a sort of pose plastique, and crowned the
bust of Joachim Murat with laurel.
It seemed as if she wished to bury memory of the past and to
destroy the hopes of the future in the dissipation of the present. To
say the least of her conduct, her imprudence and indiscretion were
great and gross enough to have destroyed any reputation; and yet
she herself described her course of life as sedentary, when she often
retired to bed ‘dead beat’ with fatigue from sight-seeing by day and
vigorous dancing by night. It was here that she made the longest
sojourn, and enjoyed herself, as she understood enjoyment, the
most. The purchase of the villa on the Lake of Como was also now
effected; and Bergami was soon after raised to the dignity of
chamberlain, and to the privilege of a seat at her own table. She
claimed a right to bestow honours, and to distinguish those on
whom she bestowed them; but her want of judgment in both
regards amounted to almost a want of intellect, or a want of respect
for herself, or for the opinions of those whose good opinion was
worth having.
At one of her festivals at Como she indulged in some freedoms
with a guest whom she strongly suspected of being a spy upon her.
Her conversation was of a light and thoughtless nature, well
calculated to give him abundance of matter to be conveyed to the
ears of his employers. A friend present suggested to her that
caution, on her part, was not unnecessary, as within a fortnight
everything she said or did was known at Carlton House. ‘I know it,’
was her reply, ‘and therefore do I speak and act as you hear and
see. The wasp leaves his sting in the wound, and so do I. The
Regent will hear it? I hope he will; I love to mortify him.’ And to
satisfy this peevish love she courted infamy; for even if she did not
practise it, her self-imposed conduct made it appear as if she and
infamy were exceedingly familiar.
Still errant, she wandered from Como to Palermo, visiting the
court there, and receiving a welcome which could not have been
more hearty had she been really of as indifferent character as she
seemed to be. At this court she presented Bergami, on his
appointment of chamberlain, and shortly after she proceeded to
Genoa, where she intended to sojourn for a considerable time. She
was conveyed thither in the ‘Clorinde’ frigate, the captain of which
spoke to those around him in no measured terms of her conduct and
course of life, particularly at Naples. She was well-lodged at Genoa.
The scene, and she who figured on it so strangely, are thus
described by the writer of a letter in the ‘Diary’—‘The Princess of
Wales’s palace is composed of red and white marble. Two large
gardens, in the dressed formal style, extend some way on either side
of the wings of the building, and conduct to the principal entrance
by a rising terrace of grass, ill-kept, indeed, but which in careful
hands would be beautiful. The hall and staircase are of fine
dimensions, although there is no beauty in the architecture, which is
plain even to heaviness; but a look of lavish magnificence dazzles
the eyes. The large apartments, decorated with gilding, painted
ceilings, and fine, though somewhat faded, furniture, have a very
royal appearance. The doors and windows open to a beautiful view
of the bay, and the balmy air they admit combines with the scene
around to captivate the senses. I should think this palace, the
climate, and the customs must suit the Princess, if anything can suit
her. Poor woman! she is ill at peace with herself; and when that is
the case what can please?’... Referring more directly to the Princess,
the writer says: ‘The Princess received me in one of the drawing-
rooms opening on the hanging terraces, covered with flowers in full
bloom. Her Royal Highness received Lady Charlotte Campbell (who
came in soon after me) with open arms and evident pleasure, and
without any flurry. She had no rouge on, wore tidy shoes, was grown
rather thinner, and looked altogether uncommonly well. The first
person who opened the door to me was the one whom it was
impossible to mistake, hearing what is reported—six feet high, a
magnificent head of black hair, pale complexion, mustachios which
reach from here to London. Such is the stork. But, of course, I only
appeared to take him for an under-servant. The Princess
immediately took me aside and told me all that was true, and a
great deal that was not.... Her Royal Highness said that Gell and
Craven had behaved very ill to her, and I am tempted to believe that
they did not behave well; but then how did she behave towards
them?... It made me tremble to think what anger would induce a
woman to do, when she abused three of her best friends for their
cavalier manner of treating her.... “Well, when I left Naples, you see,
my dear,” continued the Princess, “those gentlemen refused to go
with me, unless I returned immediately to England. They supposed I
should be so miserable without them that I would do anything they
desired me, and when they found I was too glad to get rid of ’em
(as she called it) they wrote the most humble letters, and thought I
would take them back again, whereas they were very much
mistaken. I had got rid of them, and I would remain so.”’
The Princess appears to have corresponded with Murat. The
soldier-king is said to have addressed to her a very flattering note,
beginning ‘Madame, ma chere, chere sœur,’ as if she had already
been a queen, and that he were treating with her on a footing of
equality. Her reply is described as clever but flippant, beneath her
dignity, and so wild and strange as to be entitled to be considered
one of the most extraordinary specimens of royal letter-writing that
had ever been seen.
There was yet no inconsiderable number of English guests who
gathered round the table of the Princess, and some of the former
ladies of her suite here rejoined her. Among the guests is noticed a
‘Lord B——,’ who had been a great favourite with the Prince of
Wales, and was equally esteemed by the Princess. He had been a
witness of the marriage of Mrs. Fitzherbert with the Prince, and was
now the most welcome visitor of the Princess. The illustrious pair, it
has been often observed, had ‘a strange sympathy in their loves and
habits.’ Alluding to the style of the Princess’s conversation with her
guests, the ‘Diary’ affords us another illustration. ‘Sometimes
Monsieur —— opened his eyes wide at the Princess’s declarations,
and her Royal Highness enjoys making people stare, so she gave
free vent to her tongue, and said a number of odd things, some of
which she thinks, and some she does not; but it amuses her to
astonish an innocent-minded being, and really such did this old man
appear to be. He won her heart, upon the whole, however, by
paying a compliment to her fine arm and asking for her glove.
Obtaining it, he placed it next his heart; and, declaring it should be
found in his tomb, he swore he was of the old school in all things.’
The little vanity of being proud of a fine arm was one as strong in
Queen Charlotte as in her daughter-in-law. The former had as fine
an arm as, and perhaps not a better temper than, the latter, but she
could better control that temper, and had the additional advantage
of being possessed of a more refined taste. This was not, perhaps,
always shown when she sat and listened to rather loose talk from
the Regent, with no more of reproof than her gently-uttered
‘George, George!’ by way of remonstrance. She, however, never
erred so grossly as the Princess of Wales, who not only would listen
unabashed to conversation coarse in character, but was not at all
nice herself in either story or epithet. In Italy such things were then
accounted of but as being small foibles; and when the Pope visited
her at Genoa he probably thought none the worse of her, nor bated
no jot in his courtesy towards her, because of her reputation in this
respect. She certainly loved to mystify people, and took an almost
insane pleasure in exciting converse against herself. Her adoption of
Victorine, a daughter of Bergami, was a proof that she had acquired
no profitable experience from the consequences which followed her
adoption of young Austin.
During 1815 the Princess was ever restless and on the move.
She was now entirely surrounded by Italians. Mr. St. Leger refused
to be of her household, nor would he allow his daughter to be of it.
Many others were applied to, but with similar success. Sir Humphrey
and Lady Davy also declined the honour offered them. Mr. William
Rose, Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Hartup pleaded other engagements.
Dr. Holland, Mr. North, and Mrs. Falconet were no longer with her.
Lord Malpas begged to be excused, and Lady Charlotte Campbell
withdrew, after her Royal Highness’s second arrival at Milan. The
Princess, however, had no difficulty in forming an Italian Court.
Some of her appointments were unexceptionable. Such were those
of Dr. Machetti, her physician, and of the Chevalier Chiavini, her first
equerry. Many of the Italian nobility now took the place of former
English visitors at her ‘court,’ and two of the brothers of Bergami
held respectable offices in her household, while the Countess of Oldi,
sister of the chamberlain, was appointed sole lady of honour to the
lady, her mistress. On several of the excursions made by her Royal
Highness from her villa on the Lake of Como to Milan, Venice, and
other parts of Italy, she was accompanied by Mr. Burrell, a son of
Lord Gwydyr. This gentleman ultimately took his leave of her in
August, to return to England. He was sojourning at Brussels, on his
way, when his servant, White, narrated to his fellows some accounts
of what he described as the very loose way of life of the Princess at
Milan. These stories, all infamous, but few, perhaps, which could not
be traced back to some indiscretion of this most unhappy lady, and
marvellously amplified and exaggerated, came to the ears of the
Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, then sojourning at the same
hotel; and it is declared that on the report made by the former to his
brother, the Regent, was founded the famous ‘Milan Commission,’
which was one of investigation, appointed to sit at Milan, to inquire
into the conduct of the Princess, and to report accordingly. The
commissioners sat and took evidence without making the Princess
aware of the fact; and to an indignant remonstrance addressed to
the Regent, wherein she demanded to know the object of the
commission, no answer was returned. It was soon known, however,
that the report was of a most condemnatory character, but no
proceedings were immediately instituted. Meanwhile, the Princess
continued her roving life, now on sea, now on land; now on board
the ‘Leviathan,’ and sometimes on the backs of horses or mules. Her
familiarity on all these occasions with her chamberlain was offensive
to persons of strict ideas and good principles, and those were
precisely the persons whose prejudices she loved, perhaps out of
mere mischief, to startle. He dined with her at her table, and she
leant upon his arm in their walks.
Early in January 1816, she again embarked on board the
‘Clorinde,’ Captain Pechell, with the intention of proceeding to
Syracuse. The captain, having previously seen Bergami occupying a
menial state about her Royal Highness, declined to admit him to his
table, at which he entertained the Princess—who refused such
entertainment, however, on the captain persisting on the ejection of
the chamberlain. The desired port was reached only with difficulty,
and for some months the Princess resided in Sicily, with no one near
her but this Italian household. To her chamberlain she certainly was
some such a mistress as Queen Guinever to Sir Lancelot. In liberality
of sunny smiles and largesses there can be no doubt of this; and
perhaps the quality of her favour is best illustrated by the fact of her
having bestowed her picture upon him, for which she had sat in the
character of a ‘Magdalen.’ She professed to have procured for him
also his elevation to be a Knight of Malta, and she did obtain for him
the dignity of Baron de la Francino, to heighten the imaginary
grandeur.
The next seven months were spent in continual travelling and
change of scene. The limit of her wandering was Jericho, whither
she went actually, and also in the popular sense of the word, which
describes a person as having gone thither when ruin has overtaken
him on his journey through life.
She embarked, with her Italian followers, on the 26th of March,
and nine days subsequently, after being beaten about by equinoctial
storms till the little ‘Royal Charlotte’ had scarcely a sound plank
about her, she reached Tunis, and struck up a very warm
acquaintance with the Bey. He lodged and partially fed her,
introduced her to his seraglio, perfumed her with incense till she was
nearly suffocated, and then as nearly choked her with laughter by
causing to play before her his famous female band, consisting of six
women who knew nothing of music, every one of whom laboured
under some unsightly defect, and of whom the youngest confessed
to an honest threescore years. For this entertainment she made a
really noble return, by purchasing the freedom of several European
slaves. A greater liberator than she, however, was at hand, in
Exmouth and his fleet. It was in obedience to the advice of the
Admiral, who expected to have to demolish Tunis, as the Bey
seemed disinclined to ransom the Christian slaves he held in
durance, that the Princess, after a hasty glance at the sites of Utica
and Carthage, re-embarked, after a month’s sojourn with the most
splendidly hospitable of barbarians, and, passing through the
saluting English fleet, directed the prow of her vessel to be turned
towards Greece. She went on her way accompanied by storms,
which prevented her from landing until, with infinite difficulty, she
reached the Piræus, early in May, and proceeded to Athens, where
she took up her residence in the house of the gallant French consul.
Since the days of Aspasia, Athens had seen no such lively times as
marked the period of the residence there of the Princess. Her balls
were brilliant festivities. In return for them she was permitted to
witness the piously ecstatic dancing of the Dervises (for the city of
Minerva was under the Crescent then), who have plagiarised a
maxim of St. Augustine, only altering it to suit their purpose, as
ecstatic persons will do with sacred texts, and proclaiming orat qui
saltat. The Princess had some nerve, and was by no means a
fastidious woman, but she saw here more than she had reckoned
upon, and was glad to escape from the exhibition of uncleanness
and ferocity. Athens, however, afforded more interesting spectacles
than this; she exhausted them all, according to the guide-books and
the cicerones; and she gratefully expressed her pleasure by
liberating three hundred captives, whom she found languishing in
the debtors’ prison. The fame of the deed travelled as swiftly as if it
had been a deed disgraceful to the actor, and at Corinth she was
subsequently entertained, during two whole days, with a profusion
and a gaiety that would have gladdened the heart of Laïs, who was
herself so often and so splendidly ‘at home’ in this ancient city.
 From Hellas to the Troad was a natural sequence She went
thither, as before, storm-tost—stood on the plain where infidels
assert that Troy had never stood, and, leaning on the arm of the
noble and bearded Bergami, twice crossed the Scamander. With the
first day of June she was in Constantinople, making her entry with
Mdlle. Dumont and another lady, in the springless cart or carriage of
the country, drawn by a pair of lusty bulls. She resided in the house
belonging to the British embassy. It was the last time in the course
of her travels that she found rest and protection beneath our flag.
The plague, however, being then in the city, she quitted it for a
residence some fifteen miles distant, from which she made
excursions into the Black Sea, till, growing weary of the amusement,
she once more embarked and spent a week at sea, on a frail boat,
tossed by storms and watched by corsairs; and at length reaching
Scio, sought repose, and indulged in contemplation, or may be
supposed to have done so, in the school of Homer. By the end of the
month she was amid the ruins of Ephesus. Beneath the ruined
vestibule of an ancient church she pitched her tent. The heat was
great even at night, the errant lady was sleepless, and the Baron di
Francino, ever assiduous, watched near his mistress till dawn, and
performed all faithful service required of him.
From the locality once jealously guarded by chaste Diana she
passed to the spot where her old Blackheath friend, Sir Sidney
Smith, had gained imperishable fame by gallantly vanquishing a foe
ever bravely reluctant to confess that he had met his conqueror.
Even this place might have interested the Princess by the association
of ideas which it may have furnished her as matter for meditation.
She did not, however, lose much time in contrasting the gossiping Sir
Sidney, who made Montague House ring with his laughter, with the
stern warrior who here turned back Napoleon from his way toward
India. She was longing to find rest within the Holy City, and this she
accomplished at last, but not till many an obstacle which lay in her
way had been surmounted.
Her progress was suddenly checked at Jaffa. The party, which
consisted of more than two dozen persons, had no written
permission to pass on to Jerusalem, and the Pacha could give his
consent only to five of the number to visit the city. After some
negotiations with the governor of St. Jean d’Acre, the difficulty was
removed, a large armed escort was provided, with tents, guides, and
other necessary appendages. Surrounded by these, the Princess and
her attendants had very much the air of a strolling party of
equestrians on a summer tour. They had a worn, yet ‘rollicking’ look.
There was a loose air about the men and a rompish aspect about
the ladies, while the sorry steeds, mules and donkeys, on which they
were mounted, seemed denizens of the circus and saw-dust, with
the sun-bronzed Princess as manageress of the concern. The
similitude was not lessened by the circumstance that, more than
once on the road, the Princess, from sheer fatigue and want of
sleep, rolled off her donkey to the ground.
The journey was performed beneath one of the very fiercest of
suns, and the travellers, light of heart as they were, groaned
beneath the hot infliction and the blisters raised by it. They passed
many an interesting spot on the way, but were too listless or weary
to heed the objects as they passed. Her Royal Highness bore the
perils and minor troubles of the way better than any of her
followers, but she too became almost vanquished by fatigue; and
when she entered Jerusalem, on the 12th of July, seated on an ass,
Mdlle. Dumont impiously contrasted her virtues, sufferings,
equipage, and person with those of the Saviour. This lady was
subsequently the very first who, with eager alacrity, swore away the
reputation of her mistress, and heaping her indiscretions together,
gave them the bearing of crimes, and did her unblushing utmost to
destroy what she had professed to reverence.
The Capuchin friars gave her Royal Highness a cordial reception,
and within their sacred precincts even allowed her and some of her
French attendants to sleep. In return for this knightly rather than
saintly courtesy, she instituted an order of chivalry, and, after looking
about for a saint by way of godmother to the new institution, she
fixed upon St. Caroline. In vain was it suggested to her that there
was no such saint in the Calendar. She had a precedent by way of
authorisation. Napoleon had compelled St. Roch to make way for St.
Napoleon, and why should not Caroline have ‘Saint’ prefixed to it,
and shine as the patroness of the new order? She, of course, had
her way, created poor young Austin a knight, and solemnly instituted
Baron Bergami as grand master. They looked more like strolling
players than ever; the Baron none the less so when his royal
mistress placed on his breast the insignia of the order of ‘St.
Sepulchre’ by the side of the star of the newly-appointed St.
Caroline.
With these new dignitaries the party proceeded to view all the
spots where there is nothing to be seen, but where much that is
false may be heard if the guides be listened to. For miles round
there was not a scene that had been the stage of some great event,
or was hallowed by the memory of some solemn deed or saintly
man, that the Princess did not visit. Having spent upon them all the
emotion she had on hand, she trotted off to Jericho, her panting
attendants following her; and, having found the place uninhabitable
from the fierce heat which prevailed there, the strolling Princess and
her fellow-players rushed back to the sea, and, scarcely pausing at
Jaffa, embarked hurriedly on board the polacca there awaiting them,
and set sail in hopes of speedily encountering refreshing gales and
recovering the vigour they had lost.
Their singing ‘Veni Aura’ brought not the gale they invoked. The
sun darted his rays down upon them with greater intensity than
ever, and accordingly the Princess raised a gay tent upon the deck,
beneath its folds sat by day, took all needful refreshment, and slept
by night; the Grand Master of the Order of St. Caroline fulfilling
during all that time the office of chamberlain.
The weary and feverish hours were further enlivened by a grand
festival held on board on St. Bartholomew’s day, in honour of
Bartholomew Bergami and the saint of the former name, who was
supposed to be the patron and protector of all who bore it. The
Princess drank to the Baron, and the latter drank to the Princess,
and mirth and good humour, not to say jollity, abounded; and
perhaps by the time the incident is as old as the descent of the Nile
by Cleopatra is now it may appear as picturesque and poetical as
that does. It certainly lacks the picturesque and poetical elements at
present.
It is the maxim of sailors that they who whistle for a breath of
air will bring a storm. Our travellers only longed for the former, but
they were soon enveloped by the latter, through which they
contrived to struggle till, on the 20th of September, they made
Syracuse, and were inexorably condemned to a quarantine of the
legitimate forty days’ duration. At the end of this time an Austrian
vessel conveyed them to Rome. After a brief but by no means a dull
sojourn in that city, the Princess led the way to her home in the Villa
d’Este, on the Lake of Como, where she and the Countess Oldi
exhibited the proficiency they had acquired as travellers by cooking
their own dinners and performing other little feats of amiable
independency.
And now, as if to authorise the simile made with respect to the
illustrious party, and their resemblance to a strolling company of
players, private theatricals became the most frequent pastime of the
lady of the villa and her friends. If she enacted the heroine, the
Baron was sure to be the lover. Marie Antoinette, it was said, used to
act in plays on the little stage at Trianon. The case was not to be
denied; but then the wife of Louis XVI. did not exchange mock
heroics with an ex-courier. On the other hand, the dukes and counts
she played with were often less respectable than the loosest of
menials.
The agents, whose employers were to be found in England, had
not been idle during the Princess’s period of travel. They had been
helped by none so effectually as by herself. She had courted infamy
by her heedless conduct, and, cruelly as she was used, the blame
does not rest wholly with her persecutors. Her indiscretions seemed
indulged in expressly to give warrant for suspicion that she was
more than indiscreet, and therewith even the most innocent
incidents were twisted by the ingenuity of spies and their agents into
crimes. The Baron d’Ompteda had been the most assiduous and the
best paid of the spies who hovered incessantly about her, to
misrepresent all he was permitted to see. He was banished from the
Austrian territory at the request of the Princess, whose champion,
the gallant Lieutenant Hownam, sought in vain to bring him to battle
and punish him for his treachery towards a lady. On the other hand,
the Austrian authorities commanded Bergami to divest himself of the
Cross of Malta, which he was wearing without legal authorisation—a
disgrace which his rash and imprudent mistress thought she had
effaced by purchasing for the disknighted chevalier an estate, and
putting him in full possession of the rights and dignity of lord of the
manor.
Early in 1817 the Princess repaired to Carlsruhe, on a visit to the
Grand Duke of Baden. She was received courteously, but not warmly
enough to induce her to make a long sojourn. This Duke was not
anxious to detain a guest so eccentric. Lord Redesdale told Miss
Wynn, who set the story down in her ‘Diaries,’ that ‘when the
Princess was at Baden, and the Grand Duke made a partie de chasse
for her, she appeared on horseback with a half pumpkin on her
head. Upon the Grand Duke’s expressing astonishment, and
recommending a coiffeur rather less extraordinary, she only replied
that the weather was hot, and that nothing kept the head so cool
and comfortable as a pumpkin. Her next point was Vienna, from
which city she had frightened Lord Stewart, the British ambassador,
by an intimation that she was coming to take up her residence with
him, and to demand satisfaction for the insults to which she had
been subjected by persons who were spies upon her conduct. She
experienced nothing but what she might have expected in Vienna—a
contemptuous neglect; and soon quitting that city she repaired to
Trieste, and tarried long enough there to compel the least
scrupulous to think that, if she possessed the most handsome of
chamberlains, she was herself the weakest and least wise of ladies.
He was now her constant and almost only attendant in public.
English families had long ceased to show her any respect. They
could not manifest it for a woman who, by courting an evil
reputation, evidently did not respect herself. What was her being
innocent, if she always so acted as to make herself appear guilty?
She might as well have asserted that her openly attending Mass with
Bergami was not to be taken as proof of her being a very indifferent
Protestant.
She became in every sense of the word a mere wanderer,
apparently without object, save flying from the memories which she
could not cast off. She was constantly changing her residence—so
constantly as to make her career somewhat difficult to follow; but
we know that she was residing at Pescaro when she received
intelligence which she least expected, and which deeply affected her.
During her absence from England her daughter had married Prince
Leopold, and the mother had hoped to find friends at least in this
pair, if not now, at some future period. But now she had heard that
her child and her child’s child were dead. ‘I have not only,’ she wrote
to a friend in England, ‘to lament an ever-beloved child, but one
most warmly attached friend, and the only one I have had in
England; but she is only gone before—I have not lost her, and I now
trust we shall soon meet in a much better world than the present
one. For ever your truly sincere friend, C. P.’
This calamity, however, had no effect in rendering the writer
more circumspect. Her course of life, without being one of the gross
guilt it was described, was certainly one not creditable to her.
Exaggerated reports, which grew as they were circulated, startled
the ears of her friends and gladdened the hearts of her enemies.
They were at their very worst when, in 1820, George III. ended his
long reign, and Caroline Princess of Wales became Queen-consort of
England.
As a sample of the effect produced by the above-named reports
the following, from a letter by Lady Charleville to Lady Morgan, in
February 1820, may be quoted:—‘The report of all travellers who
have had any knowledge of the Princess of Wales renders it
imperative that such a woman should not preside in Great Britain
over its honest and virtuous daughters, and something is to be done
to prevent it.’ In April of the same year Lady Morgan was in Rome,
and she wrote thence to Lady Clarke more favourably: ‘We have
Queen Caroline here; at first this made a great fuss, whether she
was or was not to be visited by her subjects, when, lo! she refused
to see any of them, and leads the most perfectly retired life! We met
her one day driving out in a state truly royal; I never saw her so
splendid. Young Austin followed in an open carriage; he is an
interesting-looking young man. She happened to arrive at an inn
near Rome when Lord and Lady Leitrim were there. She sent for
them, and invited them to tea. Lady Leitrim told me her manner was
perfect, and altogether she was a most improved woman. The Baron
attended her at tea, but merely as a chamberlain, and was not
introduced. Before you receive this; if accounts be true, her Majesty
will be in England.’
The Roman authorities treated her with scant courtesy. As soon
as the death of almost the only friend she ever had in England,
George III., was certified, Cardinal Gonzalvi, refusing to recognise in
her person a Queen of Great Britain, sent her passport to her as
Princess Caroline of Brunswick.
 CHAPTER VIII.
THE RETURN TO ENGLAND.

Report of the Milan Commissioners—The Princess’s determination to return to

England—Studied neglect of her by Louis XVIII.—Lord Hutchinson’s
proposal to her to remain abroad—Her indignant refusal—Bergami’s anger
on the refusal of the proposition—Discourtesy of the French authorities to
the Princess—Her reception in England—The Regent’s message to
Parliament—The green bag—Sympathy for the Queen—Desire for a
compromise evinced; meeting for the purpose at Lord Castlereagh’s—The
contending parties in Parliament—Mr. Wilberforce as Mr. Harmony—Mr.
Brougham the Queen’s especial advocate—The Queen’s name in the
Liturgy demanded—Mr. Denman’s argument for it—Address of the House
of Commons to the Queen—Her reply, and appeal to the nation—A secret
inquiry protested against—The Queen at Waithman’s shop—Violence of
party spirit.

The report rendered by the gentlemen who formed the Milan

Commission to inquire secretly into the conduct of the Princess of
Wales was so unfavourable to the latter that the Regent would have
taken immediate steps to have procured a divorce, but for the
assurance of his legal advisers that, even in the case of the Princess
becoming Queen-consort, she would never return to this country,
provided only that the income assigned to her by parliament as
Princess of Wales were secured to her after she was Queen. There
had been some negotiation to this effect in 1819, when it was
understood that the title of Queen would never be assumed by the
Princess if the payment of the annuity was punctually observed. Her
most intimate friends, therefore, did not reckon upon her
appearance in this country after the accession of her husband to the
throne.
 Lord Liverpool addressed a letter to Mr. Brougham, adverting to
this arrangement as having been originally proposed by Queen
Caroline—a conclusion against which she protested with great
indignation. Her first step was to pass through France to St. Omer,
where she awaited the arrival of her legal advisers. The then
reigning French monarch had in the time of his own adversity
received substantial aid and continual courtesy from the Queen’s
father; but now, in the hour of the distresses of his former
benefactor’s daughter, he beset her passage through France with
difficulties, and commanded her to be treated with studied neglect.
However mortified, she was a woman of too much spirit to allow her
mortification to be visible, and for the lack of official honours she
found consolation in the sympathy of the people. On the first
intimation of the omission of her name from the Liturgy, the Queen
wrote thus, without consulting any one: ‘The Queen of this Relams
wishes to be informed, through the medium of Lord Liverpool, First
Minister to the King of this Relams, for which reason or motife the
Queen name has been left out of the general Prayer-books in
England, and especially to prevent all her subjects to pay her such
respect which is due to the Queen. It is equally a great omittance
towards the King that his Consort Queen should be obliged to
soummit to such great neglect, or rather araisin from a perfect
ignorance of the Archbishops of the real existence of the Queen
Caroline of England.’ It was finely remarked by Mr. Denman, after he
became the Solicitor-General (at Brougham’s recommendation), that
the Queen was included in the Liturgy, in the prayer ‘for all who are
desolate and oppressed.’
At the inn of St. Omer she was met by Mr. Brougham and Lord
Hutchinson. The latter came as the representative of the ministry,
with no credentials, however, nor even with the ministerial
proposition reduced to writing. The Queen refused to receive it in
any other form. Lord Hutchinson obeyed, and made a written
proposal to the effect that, as she was now without income by the
demise of George III., the King would grant her 50,000l. per annum,
on the special condition that she remained on the continent,
surrendered the title of Queen, adopted no title belonging to the
royal family of England, and never even visited the latter country
under any pretext. It was further stated that, if she set foot in
England, the negotiation would be at an end, the terms violated, and
proceedings be commenced against her Majesty forthwith.
It has been said that the Queen’s immediate and decided
rejection of these proposals, and her resolution to proceed to
England at once, were undoubted proofs of her innocence. The
truth, however, is, that the acceptance of such terms would have
been a tacit confession of her guilt, and, had she been as criminal as
her accusers endeavoured to prove her, her safest course would
have been that which she so spiritedly adopted. The infamy here
was undoubtedly on the part of the ministry. Here was a woman in
whom they asserted was to be found the most profligate of her sex,
and to her they made an offer of 50,000l. per annum, on condition
that she laid down the title of Queen of England, of which they said
she was entirely unworthy; and this sum was to be paid to her out
of the taxes of a people the majority of whom believed that she had
been ‘more sinned against than sinning.’
It has been believed, or at least has been reported, that the
Queen was counselled to the refusal of the compromise annuity of
50,000l. by Alderman Wood. The city dignitary, in such case, got
little thanks for his advice at the hands of Baron Bergami. The latter
individual, on hearing that Queen Caroline had declined to accept
the offer, and that the alderman was her adviser on the occasion,
declared that if he ever encountered the ex-mayor in Italy he would
kill him. The courier-baron’s ground of offence was, that, had the
Queen received the money, a great portion of it would have fallen to
his share, and that he considered himself as robbed by the
alderman, whom he would punish accordingly.
Caroline refused the proposals with scorn. In one of her
characteristic letters she said: ‘The 30th of April I shall be at Calais
for certain; my health is good, and my spirit is perfect. I have seen
no personnes of any kind who could give me any advice different to
my feelings and my sentiments of duty relatif of my present situation
and rank of life.’ Fearful of further obstacle on the part of the French
government, she proceeded at once to Calais, dismissed her Italian
court, and with Alderman Wood and Lady Anne Hamilton she went
on board the ‘Leopold’ sailing packet, then lying in the mud in the
harbour. No facilities were afforded her by the authorities; the
English inhabitants of Calais were even menaced with penalties if
they infringed the orders which had been given, and no compliment
was paid her, except by the master of the packet, who hoisted the
royal standard as soon as her Majesty set foot upon the humble
deck of his little vessel. She sat there as evening closed in, without
an attendant saving the lady already named and the alderman, who
not only gave her his escort now but offered her a home. She had
solicited from the government that a house might be provided for
her, but the application had been received with silent contempt.
Her progress from Dover to London was a perfect ovation. Mr.
Brougham had given her good advice at St. Omer. ‘If,’ he said, ‘your
Majesty shall determine to go to England before any new offer can
be made, I earnestly implore your Majesty to proceed in the most
private and secret manner possible. It may be very well for a
candidate at an election to be drawn into towns by the population,
and they will mean nothing but good in showing this attention to
your Majesty; but a Queen of England may well dispense with such
marks of popular favour, and my duty to your Majesty binds me to
say very plainly that I shall consider any such exhibition as both
hurtful to your Majesty’s real dignity and full of danger in its
probable consequences.’ ‘That Brougham is afraid,’ said the Queen;
and so he was—afraid of her, afraid of some scandal, unknown to
him then, coming out after her arrival. If he could have had his way
he would not have consented to her coming to England at all. The
people saw in her a victim of persecution, and for such there is
generally a ready sympathy. They were convinced, too, that she was
a woman of spirit, and for such there is ever abundant admiration.
There was not a town through which she passed upon her way that
did not give her a hearty welcome, and wish her well through the
fiery ordeal which awaited her. She reached London on the evening
of the 7th of June, 1820, and the popular procession of which she
was the chief portion passed Carlton House on its route to the
residence of Alderman Wood, in South Audley Street. There
Alderman Wood used to spread a rug for her Majesty to tread upon,
when, to satisfy the loud-tongued mob, she appeared twenty times a
day on the little balcony. The Attorney-General would not allow his
wife to call on her; and Mrs. Denman received a similar prohibition
from Mr. Denman, who, subsequently, regretted the course he had
taken.
The Queen had scarcely found refuge beneath the alderman’s
hospitable roof when Lord Liverpool in the House of Peers, and Lord
Castlereagh in the House of Commons, conveyed a message from
the King to the parliament, the subject of which was that, her
Majesty having thought proper to come to this country, some
information would be laid before them, on which they would have to
come to an ulterior decision, of vast importance to the peace and
well-being of the United Kingdom. Each minister bore a ‘green bag,’
which was supposed and perhaps did contain minutes of the report
made by the Milan commissioners touching her Majesty’s conduct
abroad. The ministerial communications were made in the spirit and
tone of men who, if not ashamed of the message which they bore,
were very uncertain and infinitely afraid as to its ultimate
consequences.
Not that they were wanting in an outward show of boldness. The
soldiers quartered at the King’s Mews, Charing Cross, had been so
disorderly some days previous, allegedly because they had not
sufficient accommodation, that they were drafted in two divisions to
Portsmouth. When the Queen was approaching London a mob
assembled in front of the guard-house, and called upon the soldiers
still remaining there to join them in a demonstration in favour of the
Queen. Lord Sidmouth, who was passing on his way to the House of
Lords, seeing what was going on, proceeded to the Horse Guards,
called out the troops there, and stood by while they roughly
dispersed the people. It was called putting a bold face upon the
matter, but less provocation on the part of a government has been
followed by revolution.
A desire to compromise the unhappy dispute was no doubt
sincerely entertained by ministers, and all hope was not abandoned,
even after the arrival of the Queen. Mr. Rush, the United States
ambassador to England at this period, permits us to see, in his
journal, when this attempt at compromise or amicable arrangement
of the affair was first entered upon by the respective parties. On the
15th of June that gentleman dined at Lord Castlereagh’s with all the
foreign ambassadors. ‘A very few minutes,’ he says, ‘after the last
course, Lord Castlereagh, looking to his chief guest for
acquiescence, made the signal for rising, and the company all went
to the drawing-room. So early a move was unusual: it seemed to cut
short, unexpectedly, the time generally given to conversation at
English dinners after the dinner ends. It was soon observed that his
lordship had left the drawing-room. This was still more unusual; and
now it came to be whispered that an extraordinary cause had
produced this unusual scene. It was whispered by one or another of
the corps that his lordship had retired into one of his own
apartments to meet the Duke of Wellington, as his colleague in the
administration, and also Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman, as counsel
for the Queen in the disputes pending between the King and Queen.’
Mr. Rush, after mentioning that the proceedings in parliament were
arrested for the moment by members purporting to be common
friends of both King and Queen, proceeds to state that ‘the dinner at
Lord Castlereagh’s was during this state of things, which explains the
incident at its close, the disputes having pressed with anxiety on the
King’s ministers. That his lordship did separate himself from his
guests for the purpose of holding a conference in another part of his
own house, in which the Duke of Wellington joined him as
representing the King, with Mr. Brougham and Mr. Denman as
representing the Queen, was known from the former protocol,
afterwards published, of what took place on that very evening. It
was the first of the conferences held with a view to a compromise
between the royal disputants.’ On the 28th of June the American
ambassador was at the levée at Carlton House, where he learns that
‘the sensibilities of the King are intense, and nothing can ever
reconcile him.’ The same diplomatist then presents to us the
following graphic picture: ‘The day was hot, excessively so for
England. The King seemed to suffer. He remarked upon the heat to
me and others. It is possible that other heat may have aggravated in
him that of the weather. Before he came into the entrée room, from
his closet, —— of the diplomatic corps, taking me gently by the arm,
led me a few steps with him, which brought us into the recess of a
window. “Look!” said he. I looked, and saw nothing but the velvet
lawn covered by trees in the palace gardens. “Look again!” said he. I
did; and still my eye only took in another part of the same scene.
“Try once more,” said he, cautiously raising a finger in the right
direction. —— had a vein of drollery in him. I now for the first time
beheld a peacock displaying his plumage. At one moment he was in
full pride, and displayed it gloriously; at another he would halt,
letting it drop, as if dejected. “Of what does that remind you?” said
——. “Of nothing,” said I; “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” for I threw
the King’s motto at him, and then added that I was a republican, he
a monarchist, and that if he dreamt of unholy comparisons where
royalty was concerned I would certainly tell upon him, that it might
be reported at his court. He quietly drew off from me, smiling, and I
afterwards saw him slyly take another member of the corps to the
same spot, to show him the same sight.’
Meanwhile, the contending parties in parliament wore about
them the air of men who were called upon to do battle, and who,
while resolved to accomplish their best, would have been glad to
have effected a compromise which, at least, should save the honour
of their principal. As Mr. Wilberforce remarked, there was a mutual
desire to ‘avoid that fatal green bag.’ There were many difficulties in
the way. The Queen, naturally enough, insisted on her name being
restored in the Liturgy; and none of her friends would have
consented for her, nor would she have done so for herself, that she
should reside abroad without being introduced by the British
ambassador to the court of the country in which she might take up
her residence. The government manifested too clearly an intention
not to help her in this respect, for they remarked that, though they
might request the ambassador to present, they could not compel the
court to receive her. They wanted her out of the way, bribed
splendidly to endure an indelible disgrace. She was wise enough, at
least, to perceive that to consent to such a course would be to strip
her of every friend, and to shut against her the door of every court
in Europe.
Mr. Wilberforce hoped to act the ‘Mr. Harmony’ of the crisis, by
bringing forward a motion expressive of the regret of parliament that
the two illustrious adversaries had not been able to complete an
amicable arrangement of their difficulties, and declaring that the
Queen would sacrifice nothing of her good name nor of the
righteousness of her cause, nor be held as shrinking from inquiry, by
consenting to accept the counsel of parliament, and forbearing to
press further the adoption of those propositions on which any
material difference of opinion is yet remaining. The Queen’s especial
advocate, Mr. Brougham, felicitously contrasted the eager desire of
ministers to get rid of her Majesty, by sending her out of the country
with all the pomp, splendour, and ceremonies connected with
royalty, with their meanness in allowing her to come over in a
common packet, and to seek shelter in the house of a private
individual. He added that the only basis on which any satisfactory
negotiation could be carried on with her Majesty was the restoration
of her name to the Liturgy. Mr. Denman, in alluding to the case of
Sophia Dorothea, which had been cited by ministers as precedent
wherein they found authority for omitting the Queen’s name from
the Liturgy, remarked that, ‘As to the case of the Queen of George I.,
to which allusions had been made, it was not at all in point. She had
been guilty of certain practices in Hanover which compromised her
character, and was never considered Queen of England. On the
continent she lived under the designation of Princess of Halle; and
though the Prince of Wales had afterwards called her to this country
for the purpose of embarrassing the government of his father, to
which he happened to be opposed, still she was never recognised in
any other character than Electress of Hanover.’ In this statement it
will be seen that the speaker calls her Queen whom he denies to
have been accounted as such, and he adds that the Prince of Wales
called her to this country in his father’s lifetime, when he had no
power to do so; whereas he simply expressed to his friends his
determination to invite her over if she survived his father as Queen-
dowager of England. This invitation he never had the power of
making, for his mother’s demise preceded the decease of his father.
Mr. Denman was far happier in his allusion to a ministerial assertion
that the omission of the Queen’s name from the Liturgy was the act
of the King in his closet. This assertion was at once a meanness and
a falsehood, for, as Mr. Denman remarked, no one knew of any such
thing in this country as ‘the King in his closet.’ Indeed the ministers
were peculiarly unlucky in all they did; for while they asserted that
the omission was never made out of disrespect towards the Queen,
they acknowledged that it never would have been thought of but for
the revelations contained in the fatal green bag as to her Majesty’s
alleged conduct. Finally, the House agreed to Mr. Wilberforce’s
motion.
The announcement of the resolution to which the House of
Commons had come was made to her Majesty, now residing in
Portman Street, in an address conveyed to her by Mr. Wilberforce
and three other members of the Lower House. On this occasion all
the forms of a court were observed. The bearers of the address
appeared in full court dress. The Queen, in a dress of black satin,
with a wreath of laurel shaded with emeralds around her head,
surmounted by a ‘plume of feathers,’ stood in one portion of the little
drawing-room; behind her stood all the ladies of her household, in
the person of Lady Anne Hamilton, and on either side of her Mr.
Brougham and Mr. Denman, her Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor
Generals, in full-bottomed wigs and silk gowns. As the deputation
approached, the folding doors which divided the members in the
back drawing-room from the Queen and her court in the front
apartment were then thrown open, and the four gentlemen from the
House of Commons knelt on one knee and kissed her Majesty’s
hand. Having communicated to her the resolutions of the House, the
Queen, through the attorney-general, returned an answer of some
length, the substance of which, however, was, that with all her
respect for the House of Commons she could not bind herself to be
governed by its counsel until she knew the purport of the advice. In
short, she yielded nothing, but appealed to the nation. When the
assembled crowd learned the character of the royal reply its delight
was intense, and certainly public opinion was generally in favour of
the Queen and of the course now adopted by her. There was one
thing she and the public too supremely hated, and that was the
formation of a secret committee, formed principally too of ministerial
adherents, and charged with prosecuting the inquiry against her,
without letting her know who were her accusers or of what crimes
she was accused, and without affording her opportunity to procure
evidence to rebut the testimony brought against her. Against such a
proceeding she drew up a petition, which she requested the Lord
Chancellor to present. That eminent official, however, asserting that
he meant no disrespect, excused himself on the ground that he did
not know how to present such a document to the House, and that
there was nothing in the journals which could tend to enlighten him.
The petition, however, the chief prayer in which was that the
Queen’s counsel might be heard at the bar of the House against an
inquiry by secret committee, was presented by Lord Dacre, and the
prayer in question was agreed to.
The request of Mr. Brougham was for a delay of two months,
previous to the inquiry being further prosecuted, in order to leave
time for the assembling of witnesses for the defence—witnesses
whom the Queen was too poor to purchase, and too powerless to
compel to repair to England. Her Majesty’s Attorney-General asked
this the more earnestly as some of the witnesses on the King’s side
were of tainted character, and one of them was an ex-domestic of
the Queen’s, discharged from her service for robbing her of four
hundred napoleons. The learned advocate concluded by expressing
his confidence that the delay of two months would not be
considered too great an indulgence for the purpose of furthering the
ends of justice, and providing that a legal murder should not be
committed on the character of the first subject of the realm. The
best point in Mr. Denman’s speech in support of the request made by
his leader was in the quotation from a judgment delivered by a
former lord chancellor, and which was to this effect—it was delivered
with the eyes of the speaker keenly fixed on those of Lord Eldon—‘A
judge ought to prepare the way to a just sentence, as God useth to
prepare His way, by raising valleys and taking down hills, so when
there appeareth on either side a high hand, violent prosecutions,
cunning advantages taken, combination, power, great counsel, then
is the virtue of a judge seen to make inequality equal, that he may
plant his judgment as upon an even ground.’
While the Lords were deliberating on the request for
postponement, Lord Castlereagh was inveighing in the Commons
against the Queen herself, for daring to refuse to yield to the wishes
of parliament, and rejecting the advice to be guided by its counsel.
Such rejection he interpreted as being a sort of insult which no other
member of the House of Brunswick would have ventured to commit.
‘That illustrious individual,’ he said, ‘might repent the step she had
taken.’ Meanwhile, the Commons suspended proceedings till the
course to be decided upon by the Lords was finally taken. In the
latter assembly Earl Grey made a last effort to stay the proceedings
altogether, by moving that the order for the meeting of the secret
committee to consider the papers in the ‘green bag’ should be
discharged. The motion was lost, but an incident in the debate which
arose upon it deserves to be noticed. The omission of the Queen’s
name from the Liturgy had been described as the act of the King in
his closet. Lord Holland now charged the Archbishop of Canterbury
as the adviser of the act; but Lord Liverpool accepted the
responsibility of it for himself and colleagues, as having been
adopted by the King in council, at the ministerial suggestion.
The Lords having resolved to commence proceedings by a
preliminary secret inquiry, the Queen protested against such a
course, but no reply was made to her protest. With the exception of
appearing to return answers to the addresses forwarded to her from
various parts of the country, she withdrew, as much as possible,
from all publicity. Her personal friends, however, were busier than
she required in drawing up projects for her which she could not
sanction. One of these busy advocates thought that she might
fittingly compromise the matter by gaining the restoration of her
name in the Liturgy, being crowned, holding one drawing-room,
yearly, at Kensington Palace, and having her permanent residence at
Hampton Court, with 55,000l. a year to uphold her dignity. The
terms were not illiberal; but if the Queen rejected them, it was,
probably, because she knew they would never be offered. Her own
remark upon them is said to have been, that she did not want a
victory without a battle, but a victory after showing that she had
deserved it.
She was the more eager for battle from the fact that the
contents of the green bag were by no means unknown to her. At
least, it has been asserted that she had long held duplicates of some
of the evidence, if not of the report made by the Milan
commissioners, and she was satisfied she could rebut both. She
possessed one, and it was her solitary, advantage in this case. The
ministers, if not in so many words, yet by their proceedings, had
stigmatised her as utterly infamous, and yet they had considered it
not beneath them to desire to enter into negotiations with one
whom they considered guilty of all the implied infamy. The Queen’s
rejection of the proposals to compound ‘the stupendous felony’
raised up for her many a friend in circles where she had been looked
upon, if not as guilty, yet, at best, as open to very grave suspicion.
The Queen’s health required her not to confine herself within the
narrow limits of her residence in Portman Street. She accordingly
paid one public visit to Guildhall, and occasionally repaired to
Blackheath. It was on her way back from one of these latter
excursions that she honoured Alderman Waithman’s shop with a
visit. The incident is perhaps as well worth noticing as that which
tells of the trip made by the young Queen Mary to the shop of Lady
Gresham, the lady mayoress, who appears to have dealt in millinery.
The city progresses of the Queen did her infinite injury. The very
lowest of the populace, who cared little more for her than as giving
opportunity for a little excitement, were wont on these occasions to
take the horses from her carriage, harness themselves to the
vehicle, and literally drag the Queen of England through the mud of
the metropolis. She could only suffer degradation and ridicule from
such a proceeding, which a little spirit might have prevented. Her
enemies bitterly derided her through their organs in the press. They
expressed an eagerness to get rid of her, and added their
indifference as to whether ‘the alien’ was finally disposed of as a
martyr or as a criminal. On the other hand, her over-zealous
partisans gave utterance to their convictions that there was a project
on foot to murder the Queen. Party spirit never wore so assassin-like
an aspect as it did at this moment. Caroline, it must be added, was
not displeased with these popular ovations. ‘I have derived,’ she
remarked in her reply to the City address, ‘unspeakable consolations
from the zealous and constant attachment of this warm-hearted,
just, and generous people, to live at home with and to cherish whom
will be the chief happiness of the remainder of my days.’ But her
chief occupation now was to look to her defence, for the time had
arrived when her accusers were to speak openly.
 CHAPTER IX.
QUEEN, PEERS, AND PEOPLE.

The secret committee on the Queen’s conduct—Encounter between the

Queen and Princess Sophia—Bill of Pains and Penalties brought into the
House of Lords—The Queen demands to know the charges against her—
Her demand refused—The Queen again petitions—Lord Liverpool’s speech
—The Queen’s indignant message to the Lords—Money spent to procure
witnesses against her—Public feeling against the Italian witnesses—Dr.
Parr’s advice to the Queen—His zealous advocacy of her cause—Lord
Erskine’s efforts in her favour—Her hearty protest against legal oppression
—Gross attack on her in a provincial paper—Cruel persecution of her—Her
sharp philippic against Ministers—Lord John Russell’s letter to Mr.
Wilberforce, and petition to the King—The Queen at Brandenburgh House
—Death of the Duchess of York—Her eccentricities—Her character—
Addresses to the Queen, and her replies.

The secret committee charged with examining the documents in the

sealed bags made their report early in July. This report was to the
effect that the documents contained allegations, supported by the
concurrent testimony of witnesses of various grades in life, which
deeply affected the honour of the Queen, charging her, as they did,
with a ‘continued series of conduct highly unbecoming her Majesty’s
rank and station, and of the most licentious character.’ The
committee reluctantly recommended that the matter should become
the subject of solemn inquiry by legislative proceeding.
The ministers postponed any explanation as to the course to be
adopted by them upon this report until the following day. The Queen
exhibited no symptoms of being daunted by it. She appeared in
public on the evening of the day on which the report was delivered,
and, if cheers could attest her innocence, the vox populi would have