Princesses (30 page)

But the Hereditary Prince was not daunted. A month later, he himself wrote to the King: ‘The eminent qualities of Mme Princesse Royale, no less her virtues universally acknowledged, have given birth in me to the most lively desire to see my fate
united with hers.'
And the King of England, under pressure from the Imperial Court of Russia – the Hereditary Prince's sister had married Catherine the Great's son, the Emperor Paul – began to shift from his earlier position.

Slowly another story began to emerge in which the Empress Catherine, with whom Augusta of Brunswick had been a favourite, had persuaded the Princess to stay in Russia when her husband left with their children, against his wishes. Catherine had tired of her protégeé, in this story, and banished her to the castle of Lohde, where Augusta duly died. It was a shocking story, to be sure, but one in which the Hereditary Prince seemed to show no worse than anyone else involved. This story emanated from the Russian Court, where the Hereditary Prince's sister, wife of Catherine's son Paul, was now empress, and keen to promote her brother's cause.

The Prince of Wales's own marital situation did not improve, not even when his wife gave birth to a healthy girl on 7 January 1796, who was named Charlotte Augusta – good Hanoverian names. Princess Mary wrote from Windsor on the 9th, ‘I am almost distracted with joy at the birth of my little niece. I am sorry for my brother and sister [-in-law]'s sake that it was not a boy as I believe they both wished it, but I am sure in a very short time my brother will be as much pleased that it is a girl.' She went on: ‘Papa is so delighted it is a daughter. As you know, he loves little girls best. He was, I am sure, more kind than I can ever express to us in a speech he made to Lord Jersey, which was: “If the Prince of Wales is blessed with such a daughter as mine are to me, he will be a
happy
man indeed.” … I may say in return that, if my brother is as good a father to my niece as the King has always been to us, she will be a very happy little girl.'

But the Prince was truly het up. He wrote a will the night that Charlotte Augusta was born, condemning her mother on every count and leaving
the few groats he believed he possessed to ‘my Maria [Fitzherbert], my wife, the wife of my heart
and soul.'
This testamentary bequest occupied twenty-six pages.

The Queen, so practised in the business of childbirth, had sent cradles to Carlton House and had appointed rockers and nurses, dry and wet. Lady Elgin became governess to the baby destined for a majestic calling. From the first, it was pretty much established that Princess Charlotte of Wales was to be the one and only child of the Prince's marriage to Princess Caroline – and hence heir to the throne following her father.

The Prince had no justice on his side. He had taken a dislike to his cousin which largely hung on his continued love for Mrs Fitzherbert, although, a fastidious man, he found Caroline's slatternly approach to dressing and even washing off-putting. The Queen took his side, at least partly from a dislike of the Princess's mother. The princesses, for too long accustomed to defend the Prince against all comers, were beguiled by their brother's stories of his wife's insubordination. They sympathized with him and made few attempts to see their cousin and sister-in-law. And so the Princess of Wales found no support in the unknown country of England – except, indeed, from her uncle the King. But, powerful though he was, the King could not command his son to reconcile with his niece. Besides, he believed that wives should obey their husbands. And the princesses, when they tried to be even handed, failed too. Princess Elizabeth wrote to her brother on 6 June 1796 of the King ‘constantly saying that you should never yield to the Princess, and she must submit which every woman ought'. She added, ‘He has said and re-said that you must be supported by the whole family, for, if you was to fall, the rest of the family would soon follow.' The reference was unmistakably to the Duke and Duchess of York, whose amicable separation had already caused England's ally the King of Prussia some grief.

Meanwhile, the
negotiations
for the Princess Royal to marry the Hereditary Prince of Württemberg began – and proceeded at a snail's pace. The Württemberg commissioner who had been despatched to London that month was Count Zeppelin, the intimate friend of the Hereditary Prince since they had been brothers-in-arms in the Russian military service. Indeed, he was said to be such an intimate friend that the previous Hereditary Princess had objected, and the King's reference to the Hereditary Prince's ‘brutal ways' may have been occasioned by such rumours. At any rate, on 4 May Count Zeppelin had ‘a long conversation with M. le Comte de Woronzow' – the Russian Ambassador to London – ‘who informed him of the zealous interest taken by the Empress [of Russia,
the Hereditary Prince's sister] in respect to the object of M. de Zeppelin – and he [Woronzow] had the most positive orders of Her Imperial Majesty to use any means in his power to her name to facilitate its
accomplishment.'
Two days later, Zeppelin made the formal proposal in his master's name for the Princess Royal's hand in marriage, and on 4 June the Hereditary Prince wrote to an English baronet, Sir John Coxe Hippisley, who had interested himself in the affair, of his joy at the successful outcome of ‘my dear Zeppelin's negotiations'.

The King's response was cautious, and he wrote of his daughter to the Hereditary Prince from Kew on the 15th, ‘In an affair so essential to her happiness it would have been contrary to my duty not to leave her perfectly free in taking time to fully reflect' before declaring her sentiments. He gave his consent to the match, but he could not think of sending his daughter to Germany until it was in a more tranquil state. Likewise, he stated: ‘You must defer coming to this country until circumstances are such that it [the marriage] can
take place.'

The Prince in Stuttgart was impervious to snubs, and the Princess Royal wrote on 7 September to the Prince of Wales to say that she had received ‘a very handsome letter' from him. Everything that had been anathema to her was enchanting now. ‘We were out to see the line,' she reported, describing the spectacle of part of the British fleet sailing in formation past Weymouth Bay. Generally the Princess hated her family's daily pursuits – music, cards and the sea – but on this occasion, she added, ‘I own I was much
amused.'
Baron de Rieger, the Württemberg Envoy Extraordinary, left Stuttgart for London with the marriage contract in his luggage on 3 October, charged by the Hereditary Prince to tell the King ‘of the happy change in our affairs … the tranquillity of this country'. And the King, resigning himself, told Lord Grenville on 6 November: ‘Baron Rieger is to arrive in the course of this month to conclude the treaty of marriage.' Promptly next day the Baron duly arrived, and presented his credentials from the Duke and Hereditary Prince to the Duke of Portland.

Unfortunately, towards the end of that month the Princess Royal caught jaundice, and was ‘as yellow as a guinea'. But, her sister Augusta wrote, she bore ‘the inconvenience of the complaint with uncommon patience and Sir Lucas Pepys foretells the greatest good
from it.'
Early in the New Year she wrote again to Lady Harcourt: ‘All the spare time I have is devoted to poor Pss R who, after a week's amendment, is worse than ever … It is a detestable complaint and I fear, will not leave her as soon as she thinks. She is as yellow as gold and as weighty as lead – suffers more than she ever ought to do and is as patient as a
lamb.'

Jaundice, wicked weather, reverses on the Continent in the war against France, and many other obstacles notwithstanding, the determined bride was dressed and ready when the Prince, having disembarked on her native coast from the
Prince of Orange
packet on 10 April 1797, appeared at the Queen's House on the evening of the 15th for their first interview. Princess Elizabeth wrote to Lady Charlotte Finch immediately afterwards, ‘We are just come upstairs and I can say with great truth and pleasure that nothing could go off better than the interview of this evening with the Prince of Wurttemberg. My sister is very well pleased with him, and I really think that he appears delighted with her. He has a very handsome countenance, is certainly very large – but very light with it and a most excellent manner. In short, we are all pleased with him.'

‘Very large' indeed: Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Württemberg had a huge stomach, so large and round that Napoleon said of him: ‘God put him on earth to see how tight you could stretch, without
bursting.'
‘Sensible and well informed' he might be, ‘… though not exactly the picture of a young
lover',
as Lord Grenville wrote. But his appearance was a gift to the London cartoonists, who seized on this German prey and dubbed him the great ‘Bellygerent'.

The Princess Royal did not flinch from her purpose, although a private letter of 13 May from Windsor told Fanny Burney she was ‘almost dead with terror and agitation and affright at the first meeting – she could not utter a word – the Queen was obliged to speak her
answers.'
The Prince said courteously that he hoped this would be the last disturbance he would cause her, and paid court successfully to her sisters until she was recovered.

A note written by the Princess Royal exists from the days that followed: ‘My dearest Lady Harcourt, I have received the Queen's commands to acquaint you that if you wish to see my trousseau, she desires that you will be so good as to be at the Queen's House tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock. Pray mention this to nobody, as the Queen does not wish it to be
spoken of.'
And among the gowns and dresses laid out at the Queen's House were two complete sets of baby clothes, one for a girl, one for a boy, till the age of three. Most of the dresses, however, were unmade. Queen Charlotte, who had taken on the task of equipping her daughter, had merely selected material to be made up in Germany according to fashions there.

As for the wedding ceremony itself, the Queen declared that she and no other would dress Royal for the occasion, as Augusta told Miss Burney when the latter said she had heard ‘the bride had never looked so lovely'. Proclaimed the younger sister, “Twas the Queen dressed her! – You know
what a figure she used to make of herself, with her odd manner of dressing herself; but Mama said, “Now really, Princess Royal, this one time is the last; and I cannot suffer you to make such a quiz of yourself; so I will really have you dressed properly.” And indeed', added Augusta, ‘the Queen was quite in the right, for everybody said she had never looked so well in her life.'

Augusta's light-hearted recital does not disguise the tension that existed between Royal and the mother she was about to leave. But the Queen spoke admiringly of Royal insisting on embroidering her ‘wedding garment, and entirely … well knowing that three stitches done by any other would make it immediately said it was none of it by herself. With her mother's sanction, the silks she used were white and silver, her right as eldest daughter of the King, although, marrying a widower, she should, according to etiquette, have been in white and gold. James Bland Burges, as knight marshal of the King's household, walked ahead of the tremulous Princess and her husband ‘immediately after the drums and trumpets, and in front of the pursuivants and
heralds.'
And in the accomplished cartoon by James Gillray entitled
The Bridal Night
that depicts this scene, not only does the coronet, ‘set with brilliants', that the bride wore, shine, but a bag marked £80,000 floats above the
procession
.

The new Hereditary Princess of Württemberg brought to the marriage a dowry of £80,000, which would become her widow's jointure if she survived her husband. The King, citing the uncertainties of Continental war and hence the uncertainties of currency valuation, insisted on keeping the sum lodged in Britain. The Hereditary Prince did not argue, but he protested on another point, ‘extended a finger and said, “not a ring to show”'. In Germany it was the custom for the bride to give the groom a present of value. Even the Princess's hair in a ring surrounded by brilliants would answer for his marriage. The Harcourts returned a dusty answer: ‘I hope … that upon reflection the Pce will consider that every country has its own customs, and that it is as reasonable that he should at present be satisfied with those established here, as it will soon be for the Princess to adopt those of the place she is going to. It would be very painful for her to find that there was dissatisfaction, after all the pains that have been taken to show every attention.'

The Princess Royal was up early on 2 June 1797 to make her departure with her bridegroom on this great adventure, having said her goodbyes to her sisters and parents the evening before. ‘The parting was very severe,' noted her niece Charlotte's sub-governess, Miss Anne Hayman. ‘There was to be no leave taking by mutual agreement, and the sisters dropped away
one by one the evening before. But when the King went to wish the Princess of Württemberg good night, she fainted in his arms, and he was obliged to leave her in that state, not daring to encounter the scene that might follow.'

Her brother the Prince of Wales walked about Carlton House till midnight, meaning every instant to go and bid his sister farewell, but, feeling too much, he put it off till morning. When morning came, he was too affected to depart the house, and then it was too late. The new Princess of Württemberg, however, the night before forgotten, ‘sailed in good spirits'. Her family was less sure than she was of a successful outcome to this step into matrimony, less sure of her husband and of his character. Five years later, on 11 October 1802, Queen Charlotte wrote of the Hereditary Prince to her brother, ‘I agree with you, he is agreeable in society.' Among the Hereditary Prince's friends in England were Sir Joseph Banks, with whom he stayed, and who advised him on an agricultural and manufacturing tour he made of the country while he waited for his bride to complete her arrangements for departure. ‘But he has a vanity which made him detested in England,' continued the Queen. ‘He did not know how to govern his bad humour in the presence of the women of my daughter's suite, and for a man who prides himself in knowing the world, that was to forget himself entirely. In a few words, he displeased us totally and his departure was not
regretted.'