MEMOIRS

OF

THE COURT OF ENGLAND.

GEORGE THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

His birth in 1683.-Early neglected by his father, George the First. His marriage.-Made a Knight of the Garter in 1706, and created Duke of Cambridge, with precedence over all other Peers.-Serves under Marlborough, and is present at the battle of Oudenarde in 1708.-His daring valour on that occasion.—Anecdote of him.—Created Prince of Wales on the accession of his father to the throne.-Extract from Lady M. W. Montagu's Works.-Origin of the misunderstanding between the Prince and his father.-Extract from Horace Walpole. Put under arrest, and deprived of the appurtenances of royalty. Singular paper, relative to the Prince, found in George the First's cabinet after his death.-Extract from the Marchmont Papers.-The King's attempt to deprive the Prince and Princess of all power over their own children.— The twelve Judges consulted on the occasion.-Sir Robert Walpole effects a partial reconciliation between the King and the Prince.-Death of George the First, and Proclamation of the Prince as George the Second.-Burns his father's Will. VOL. III.

B

GEORGE AUGUSTUS, the only son of King George the First, by the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea of Zell, was born at Hanover the 30th of October 1683. As it was not till many years after he had passed the period of childhood, that there appeared any probability of his succeeding to the throne of England, the people of this country naturally took but a slight interest in the heir of a distant and petty electorate; and consequently we are left almost entirely in the dark respecting the early history of the future sovereign. To his father he was indebted for little but his birth. The Elector, who grew to detest his son in after life, appears to have neglected him even in childhood, and by confiding the charge of his heir to his own mother, the celebrated Electress Sophia, would seem to have gladly relieved himself of a disagreeable duty.

With the exception of a visit, which the young Prince paid to William the Third at Loo in 1699, we discover no event in his history of any interest, till the occasion of his marriage, on the 2nd of September 1705, with Wilhelmina Dorothea Carolina, eldest daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach. This remarkable woman will form the subject of the next memoir.

The celebrated act of the legislature, which entailed the sovereignty of these realms on the Protestant descendants of James the First, having placed the Electoral Prince in the immediate line of succession, the English ministry con

sidered it necessary to confer on him a share of those honours, of which he was afterwards destined to be the distributor. Accordingly, on the 4th of April, 1706, Queen Anne bestowed upon him the Order of the Garter, and on the 20th of November following he was created, by that Princess, Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Milford Haven, and Marquess and Duke of Cambridge; with precedence over every other peer of Great Britain.

Personal courage, and a taste for the military profession, have for centuries, with scarcely a single exception, formed the chief characteristics of the princes of the house of Hanover. Inheriting in an eminent degree the ruling passion of his family, and probably influenced by a natural desire to display himself in a favourable light to the English nation, and to show himself not unworthy of the honours which had recently been conferred upon him, the Electoral Prince was induced to enter the ranks of the British army, and accordingly enlisted himself under the standard of the Duke of Marlborough. He served under that illustrious general during the campaign of 1708, in which year he had the good fortune to be present at the battle of Oudenarde. Though apparently little qualified to figure as a great general, he nevertheless, during that celebrated engagement, performed a creditable and even conspicuous part. Placing himself at the head of the Hanoverian dragoons, he charged the enemy with an intrepidity which

almost amounted to rashness; his daring nearly cost him his life: his horse was shot under him, and the officer commanding the squadron was killed by his side. It is remarkable that the exiled son of James the Second,-his cousin and afterwards his competitor for dominion,—displayed equal valour in the opposite ranks.

On the death of Queen Anne, and the consequent accession of his father to the throne of England, the Prince was unable to conceal his extraordinary elation at the event. In the fulness of his heart he exclaimed to an English gentleman, "I have not one drop of blood in my veins which is not English, and at the service of my father's subjects." He landed with his father at Greenwich on the 17th of September 1714, and on the 27th of the same month was created Prince of Wales. The same year the titles of Earl of Chester and of Flint were conferred upon him. It has been mentioned, as a singular fact, that, since the time of Edward the Black Prince, he was the only Prince of Wales who had children alive in the lifetime of his father.

Of George the Second, previously to his succession to the throne, but few particulars have been handed down to us, and those few, with the exception of his conduct at Oudenarde, are but little to his credit. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observes, in her "Account of the Court of George the First," "I have not yet given the character of the Prince. The fire of his temper appeared in every look and gesture; which, being un

happily under the direction of a small understanding, was every day throwing him upon some indiscretion. He was naturally sincere, and his pride told him that he was placed above constraint; not reflecting that a high rank carries along with it a necessity of a more decent and regular behaviour than is expected from those who are not set in so conspicuous a light. He was so far from being of that opinion, that he looked upon all the men and women he saw as creatures he might kick or kiss for his diversion; and whenever he met with any opposition in those designs, he thought his opposers insolent rebels to the will of God, who created them for his use; and judged of the merit of all people by the ready submission to his orders, or the relation they had to his power." *

The disgraceful misunderstanding which estranged the Prince from his father, inasmuch as it throws light on the manners of a past age, and on the characters of the parties immediately concerned, deserves a passing notice in our pages.

The breach between the father and son is attributed, by Horace Walpole and other writers, to some unpleasant circumstances connected with the christening of one of the Prince's children. The Prince, it seems, had proposed that the King, and his own uncle the Bishop of Osnaburgh, should be sponsors to his young child. The selection was clearly an unexceptionable one, and consequently the Prince was not

* Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. i. p. 121. ed. 1837.