CHAPTER IV.

BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES.

Death of the Duke of Cumberland-His military career-The soubriquet of the Butcher given him-Anecdotes of him-Marriage of Caroline Matilda —Her married life unhappy-Dr. Struensee-Mésalliances of the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland-The Duke of Cumberland and Lady Grosvenor The Royal Marriage Act-Olivia Serres-Lord Clive's present of diamonds to the Queen-Disgusting correspondence of the Duchess of Orleans and Queen Caroline-The Prince of Wales's juvenile drawing-room -Simple life of the royal family at Kew-Prince Frederick and his cottage beauty-Paton and his naval pictures-Royal births-The custom of cake and caudle observed-Petty larcenists-Sarah Wilson and her subsequent life-Death of Princess Mary; and of Princess Augusta, the King's mother-The Earl of Bute-Neglected education of George the ThirdPetronilla, Countess Delitz-The Countess of Chesterfield, her conversion by Whitfield - Efforts of Lady Huntingdon to convert the gay Earl of Chesterfield-Mr. Fitzroy-George the Third at PortsmouthJacob Bryant's "golden rule"-Witty remark of Queen Charlotte— Attendant bards on royalty; Mark Smeaton, Thomas Abel, Davià Rizzio -The Princes under the guardianship of Lady Charlotte Finch-The Queen's benevolence-Satirists.

THE favourite son of Caroline, and the favourite brother of the Princess Amelia, died on the last day of October. His health had long been precarious: he had, like his mother, grown extremely corpulent, and his sight had nearly perished. Indeed, he could only see, and that very imperfectly, with one eye, and yet he was comparatively but a young man; not more than forty-four years of age. His course of life, both in its duties, and its so-called pleasures, had made an old man of him before his time. He had had a paralytic stroke, was much afflicted with asthma, and suffered continually from a wound in the leg, which he had received in his first great battle, when he was little more than a boy, at Dettingen, and which had never healed.

He was born when his mother was yet Princess of Wales. She loved him because he was daring and original; qualities which he evinced by his replies to her when she was lecturing him as a wayward child. For the same reasons, was he liked by his grandfather, at whose awkward English the graceless grandson laughed loudly, and mimicked it admirably.

It is not astonishing that his mother loved him, for as he grew in years he grew in grace and dignity. In outward bearing, as in mental endowments, he was very superior to his brother, the Prince of Wales: he was gentlemanlike without affectation; and accomplished without being vain of his accomplishments. Never was a prince so popular, so winning in his ways, as William of Cumberland during his minority.

He was but twenty-two years of age when he accompanied George II. to the field, and shared in the bloody honours of the day at Dettingen. The honours he reaped here, however, were fatal to him. They led to his being placed in chief command of an army, before he was fitted to do more than lead a brigade. In '45, when the French invested Tournay under Marshal Saxe, the son of Aurora Königsmark, the Duke of Cumberland was placed in command of the English and Dutch forces, numerically very inferior to the foe, and charged with leading them to force the enemy to raise the siege. The attempt was made in the great battle of Fontenoy; where we gained a victory, and yet were vanquished. We beat the enemy, but, through want of caution, exposed ourselves to a cross fire of batteries, against which valour was impotent. It was the "cavalry charge" at Balaclava on a larger scale; and it cost us ten thousand men, and unmerited loss of reputation.

The rose which had fallen from his chaplet the Duke replaced at Culloden, where he fought one of the "decisive battles of the world," whereby the hopes of the Stuarts were crushed in half an hour. The stern severity of the young general, after the battle, gave him the name of the "butcher." It was a name which, in former times, especially in France, had been conferred on victors who had gained renown by slaying thousands of their fellow men. The duke was not ashamed of the

name.

He wore it with as much complacency as though it had been a decoration. With regard to his severities, it may be said that, terrible as they were, they had the effect of deterring men from rushing into another rebellion, which would have cost more blood than the duke ever caused to be shed, by way of prevention. Beneath his iron heel he trampled out the embers which lay around the magazine. He saved his father's throne, and gained eternal infamy.

For himself and his

But not from his contemporaries. troops the popular heart beat high with admiration and sympathy, and while the public hand scattered rewards in profuse showers upon the army, 'parliament increased the Duke's reward, and colleges offered him their presidential chairs. He was familiarly called "the Duke," as Marlborough had been before him, and as Wellington was after him. The proud possession of the empty distinction seems to be in abeyance, for want of a hero.

If prince had never been so deservedly popular, so may it be said that never was prince so justifiably stripped of the popular regard. As he grew in manhood, his heart became hardened; he had no affection for his family, nor fondness for the army, for which he had affected attachment. When his brother died, pleasure, not pain, made his heart throb, as he sarcastically exclaimed, “It is a great blow to the country, but I hope it will recover in time." The death, if it did not place him next to the throne, at least gave him hopes of being Regent, should his sire die before the young heir was of age.

It was, however, the bloody Mutiny Act, of which he was really the author, which brought upon him the universal execration. "The penalty of death," says Walpole, "came over as often as the curses of the commination on Ash Wednesday." He who despised popularity, was philosophically content when deprived of it. He was dissolute, and a gambler. He hated marriage, and escaped from being united with a Danish princess, by the adroit manœuvre of getting his friends to insist upon a large settlement from the royal father, too avaricious to grant it.

If he was lashed into fury by his name being omitted from the Regency Bill, he was more sensitively wounded still, by being made to feel that English uncles had, before this, murdered the nephews who were heirs to the throne. He was incapable of the crime, for it could have profited him nothing. The knowledge, however, that popular opinion stigmatised him as being capable of committing an offence so sanguinary, was a torture to him. One day, Prince George, his nephew, entered his room. It was a soldier's apartment hung with arms. He took down a splendid sword to exhibit it to the boy. The future husband of Charlotte turned pale, evidently suspecting that his uncle was on sanguinary thoughts intent. The Duke was dreadfully shocked, and complained to the Princess Dowager of Wales, that scandalous prejudices had been instilled into the child against him.

In 1757 he reluctantly assumed the command of the army commissioned to rescue Hanover from the threatened invasion of the French. His opponent was Marshal D'Etries, from before whom he fell back at the Rhine, and to whom he disgracefully surrendered Hanover, by the infamous convention of Klosterseven. When the King saw him enter Kensington Palace, after his peremptory recall, the Monarch exclaimed, "Behold the son who has ruined me and disgraced himself!" That son, who declared he had written orders for all he did, and who certainly was invested with very full powers, resigned all his posts; and the hero of Dettingen, and pacificator of North Britain, became a private gentleman, and took to dice, racing, and other occupations natural then, or common at least, to gentlemen with more money than sense or principle. There is a good trait remembered of him at this period of his career. He had dropped and lost his pocket-book at Newmarket; and declined to make any more bets, saying, that "he had lost money enough for that day." In the evening the book was brought to him by a half-pay officer who had picked it up. "Pray keep it, sir," said the Duke, "for if you had not found it, the contents would, before this, have been in the hands of the blacklegs." Another favourable trait was his desire to give

commissions to men who earned them on the field. He felt that while any "fool" might purchase a commission, it was hard to keep it back from the man who had fought for it. He once promoted a sergeant to an ensigncy, and finding him very coolly treated by his brother officers, the Duke refused to dine with Lord Ligonier, unless-pointing to the ensign-he might bring his "friend" with him. This recognition settled the

question.

The Duke, cheated by his father's will, and sneered at by Marshal Saxe; with no reputation but for bravery, and no merit as a country gentleman, but that of treating his labourers with some liberality, lived on as contentedly as though he were quietly enjoying all possible honour. His good-humoured gallantry was of a hearty nature. When George the Third, in 1762, complimented Lady Albemarle, in full drawing-room, on the victories achieved by her husband, the Duke of Cumberland stepped across the room to her and enthusiastically exclaimed, "If it was not in the drawing-room, I would kiss you.” He was a constant attendant at these ceremonies. On the morning of the 31st of October he had been to court, and had conversed cheerfully with Queen Charlotte. It was the last time she ever beheld him. He subsequently dined in Arlington Street with Lord Albemarle, and appeared in good health, although the day before, when playing at picquet with General Hodgson, he had been confused and mistook his cards. Early in the evening, he was at his town-house, 54, Upper Grosvenor Street, when the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Northington called upon him. As they entered the room, he was seized with a suffocation. One of his valets, who was accustomed to bleed him, was called, and prepared to tie up his arm; but the Duke exclaimed "It is all over!" and immediately expired, in Lord Albemarle's arms.

Thus died the favourite son of Caroline of Anspach, to place a crown on whose brow she would have sacrificed her own life. He was an indifferent general, who outlived the reputation he acquired at Culloden, where it was physically impossible that he should be beaten. Where to be vanquished was possible,