The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope Part 29

The Beaumonts no doubt are still travelling _en suite_ in Scotland. I wonder how many darts and hearts have been fired and wounded amongst my too susceptible Countrymen! We shall see when they return. I suppose half the Country will follow them back into Yorks.h.i.+re.

Later in the year, from the same town, another friend, Sir James Graham, [17] wrote:--

BRIGHTON, _December 28th, 1819._

The Regent is in the best possible state of health and spirits, and moves to London and back frequently. He leaves to-day for a few days.

The Pavilion Palace is not in a state to receive Company and therefore he sees very few. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester have been here some time, and remain until the 5th or 6th of January, and this place is quite full of company-not a good house to be got. Lady Elizabeth Lowther has been here and is much better than usual.

Perhaps stirred by the letters received from their friends in England, the thoughts of the exiled family turned more and more towards their home, and Marianne wrote to her brother--

I shall be delighted to nationalise in old England. I think as much as mind is superior to body, so much is English society better than French-I mean that in which we live.... This is a dancing generation, I think people's wits live in their heels and they cultivate nothing else, though Mrs Poplim, who is now at the bottom of the precipice, _tout a fait_, gives Proverbs and Concerts.

Lady Morgan [18] is quite the light of Paris, people flock to her house as they would to a wild beast show. She has Talma, Mile.

Georges, and all the other Lions, foreign and home-bred. She and the Rochefoucaulds are very thick--a great proof of their want of tact, for she is the most impudent pretender to literature I ever met with.

_Mrs Spencer-Stanhope to Charles Spencer-Stanhope._ _December 12th, 1819._

Although I have written this morning till my hand is tired and my head confused, I cannot allow the remainder of this sheet to depart merely blank paper.... The French dance as if they feared they might not live to begin again after Lent. Lady Hales's ball was so full and hot that the dancing was not agreeable. There is a very pretty French girl there, a Paris Belle, and the first _partie_ in France, Mlle. de p.r.o.neville; she is the only Peeress in her own right in France, and has a large fortune. I say, as our fortunes come here, she should marry into England. I see that Lord Mountmorris claims the t.i.tle of Annesley; should he succeed, the little Belle here will lose her t.i.tle, if not her fortune also, probably not all, as I believe her mother had a large one.

I hope by this time you have John in London. I wish you could persuade him to marry, though not to sacrifice family to fortune.

Almack's and the French Plays are to be the _ton_, and will it be advisable to apply soon? How is the Opera?

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE III

_Engraved by S. W. Reynolds, and Pubd. by His Majesty's Most Gracious Permission, February 24th, 1820._

When the ear heard him, then it blessed him, and when the eye saw him it gave witness of him.

He delivered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. Kindness, meekness, and comfort, were in his tongue; if there was any virtue, and if there was any praise, he thought of those things.

His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore.

_To the British Nation this print of the FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE is most respectfully dedicated by Samuel M Reynolds._

PROOF

_A print taken of George III when mad. The possession of Rowland Pickering, Esq._]

As shown by the last sentence, Mrs Stanhope was already thinking of securing her Opera box betimes in view of her approaching return to her native land. Ere she did so, however, an event occurred which terminated all thoughts of gaiety. On Sunday, January 30th, the Journal of John Stanhope records:--

Went to Portland St. Chapel. Observed that the Clergyman prayed--not for the Prince and Princess of Wales--but for the Royal Family in general. Called on Mrs Arthur Stanhope and learned that the King had died at half past eight the night before. Singular that the very day we had put on mourning for the Duke of Kent should be that on which the death of his father was announced. The _Observer_ states that the King died without any appearance of pain and without a lucid interval. He had reigned fifty-nine years, three months and nine days.

He was 81 years, 7 months, and 126 days old.

_31st._

After breakfast, went down to Carlton House to see the Proclamation of King George IV. The King-at-Arms cut a ridiculous figure. The guns fired, the Proclamation was read, the Bands saluted, and some say the new King appeared at the window and was greeted with cheers, but it is since said that he did not appear and the cheers were in consequence of the Proclamation only. Many of the Princes were present.

_February 24th, 1820._

Greeted with the intelligence of a fight that had taken place between the Radicals and the Bow St. Officers and a detachment of the Guards.

It appeared that twenty-five of them, headed by Thistlewood, had formed a plot to attack the Ministers when dining at Lord Harrowby's.

Two of them were to go there with red Boxes in lieu of dispatch Boxes.

Whilst the porter was taking these pretended dispatches, one of them was to open the door to the remainder of the gang. They were to throw fire-b.a.l.l.s into the Mall, and, in the midst of the confusion thus occasioned, to rush into the Dining-room and kill the Ministers.

Lord Harrowby had been warned by a person he met in the Park, and the dinner was accordingly postponed. The Conspirators, however, met in a small street (Cato Street) near Edgware Road. Mr Birnie, the Magistrate, directed the police officers to enter the house & secure them. The Guards, who were to second, entered unfortunately by the wing end of the street. The Police Officers ascended into the Hay Loft, where the Conspirators were a.s.sembled, by a ladder. They found about 25 in a room with candles & arms of various descriptions upon the table, and called them to surrender. Thistlewood made a thrust at Smithers with a long sword & the Officer immediately fell, crying out "Oh G.o.d!" The Conspirators then put the candles out with their swords and in the confusion many of them escaped. Fitzclarence in the meantime advanced at the head of the detachment of Guards. One of the Conspirators presented a pistol at him, but fortunately the Serjeant knocked it aside and received part of the contents in his coat sleeve.

Another made a thrust at him, and that was also knocked aside. He then advanced at the head of the Guards into the room. He secured a man who again presented a pistol at him, but it missed fire, so that he had three narrow escapes. Nine of the Conspirators were taken, and Thistlewood, for whom a reward of a Thousand Pounds was offered, was taken during the course of the day in his bed. Saunders, in company with another Bow St. Officer, entered the room and threw himself on the bed. He said, "I have made no resistance. You could not have taken me otherwise!"

Thistlewood and four of his companions were hanged and then beheaded, but the horrid spectacle of their execution roused the public to demand the abolition of the punishment of decapitation, and they were the last persons who thus suffered in England.

But the country did not readily resume the more peaceful conditions which had been thus rudely disturbed, and it was to a land distracted by rioting as well as to a land of mourning that Mrs Stanhope and her family returned early in 1820, in order to prepare for the wedding of her son, Edward Collingwood. [19]

Manifold, indeed, were the changes which had occurred within the last few years. Not only had the long and chequered reign of George III. ended and the Regent at length grasped the power which he had so long coveted, but the subject of the succession was creating universal interest. Since 1817, the luckless Princess Charlotte had lain in her untimely grave with the still form of the babe which had cost her existence-mother and child in one dark tragedy bereft of the great destiny which was their heritage. And now in the nursery of Kensington Palace was a little fatherless girl of a year old on whom the hopes of England centred. But of the absent Queen of George IV. disparaging rumours were circulated, and while in the affections of her fickle husband it was said Lady Conyngham had supplanted Mrs Fitzherbert, Lady Hertford and Lady Jersey, whispers of a Royal divorce were in the air, and the threatened coming of Caroline was awaited with increasing anxiety.

The spirit of unrest which pervaded the country had even penetrated to Yorks.h.i.+re. The weavers there were rioting, and so threatening was their behaviour that about this date Mr Frederick Wentworth actually sent to offer them a bribe of 20 not to burn down Wentworth Castle. The North was deemed unsafe, and, abandoning all thoughts of visiting it, Mrs Stanhope, whose former home in Grosvenor Square had been sold, decided to settle in Langham Place. She therefore took a large house in that locality, which was entered by great gates and stood in the midst of a fine garden, and there her family swiftly resumed the old routine of their London life.

Despite the mourning for the late King, Mrs Stanhope wrote: "Mrs Malcolm who called yesterday tells me there is a great deal of quiet society & that if you get into a set, you may be engaged every night." While Marianne regaled her brother with her usual "quiz."

I am not in love with the dinnerings in the neighbourhood, we met 14 people yesterday at Lord Ashtown's, none of whom I trust I shall ever see again.

I must tell you the derivation of the word _dinnering_. The lady of a new-made baronet in Dorsets.h.i.+re informed us that her husband was put under a regiment & ordered the _tippet_ bath to cure him of the effect of London "dinnerings."

I am afraid you did not hear of our meeting with a lady who had once nearly taken a house in Yorks.h.i.+re "_in a remote part, near West Riding_"--which she certainly took for a town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MARCHIONESS CONYNGHAM _From a miniature by P. Singry (about 1825-30) in the Wallace Collection._]

In June that year the arrival of the Queen brought public excitement to a climax. On the day when she was to land, greatly to the relief of the authorities who dreaded a riot, there was an unusually heavy storm. The Heavens themselves seemed in league against the unhappy woman. It poured on her first arrival in England, it poured on her return from her long exile, it was destined to pour during her last sad exit from the scene of so many humiliations. John Stanhope, who had last seen Caroline as she wrathfully turned her back upon his friend, Mr Maxwell, at Naples, was anxious to witness her reception in England as Queen. On June 6th his diary records:--

It rained heavily, and between the wet and the unexpected arrival of the Queen, London was in a state of indescribable confusion.

Lord ---- had been sent down to negociate with her. He was commissioned to offer her 50,000 a year on condition of her remaining abroad and not bearing the t.i.tle of Queen. These conditions she rejected, and abandoning herself entirely to the advice of Alderman Wood, did not attempt to keep the negociation open, but embarked on board the Leopold packet with Lady Anne Hamilton, Alderman Wood and her suite. Sir Neil Campbell drove me a little way on the Kent Road, the whole was lined with people, but we soon got tired of waiting--to receive the Queen in the midst of the violent storm and returned home.

The Queen arrived between six and seven. A mob was immediately a.s.sembled round Alderman Wood's house, in which she has taken up her abode, and forced people to pull off their hats as they pa.s.sed the house. The Queen made her appearance on the Balcony.

The Ministers brought a green bag down to the House containing the charges against the Queen.

_Mrs Spencer-Stanhope._ _August 8th, 1820._