The Trial of Queen Caroline

Thompson, Jason

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_6

The Trial of Queen Caroline

Jason Thompson⁴

Chapter
First Online: 26 September 2018

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Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

Abstract

When George became king in 1820, he resolved to be rid of Caroline entirely through an Act of Parliament that would dissolve his marriage by proving her guilty of sexual misconduct. She returned to London amid great popular acclaim to defend herself in what became known as the Trial of Queen Caroline. Gell loyally came to give strong evidence on her behalf, and the proceedings against her failed. But Caroline’s popularity, based more on hatred for the government than affection for her, evaporated. George excluded her from the Coronation, and the crowds jeered her. Deeply hurt, Caroline fell ill and the “Injured Queen,” as she called herself, died in August 1821.

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Notes

1.
Greville, The Greville Memoirs, 1: 94.
2.
For an assessment of the revolutionary importance of the event, see Tamara L. Hunt, “Morality and Monarchy in the Queen Caroline Affair,” Albion 23 (1991): 697–722; and Thomas Laqueur, “The Queen Caroline Affair: Politics as Art in the Reign of George IV ,” Journal of Modern History 54 (1982): 417–66. Also pertinent is Jonathan Fulcher, “The Loyalist Response to the Queen Caroline Agitations,” Journal of British Studies 34 (1995): 481–502.
3.
Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 171.
4.
Philip Ziegler, Addington: A Life of Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth (New York: John Day, 1965), 386.
5.
Holland, Henry Richard Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron , The Journal of the Hon. Henry Edward Fox (Afterwards Fourth and Last Lord Holland) 1816–1830, Earl of Ilchester, ed. (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1923), 308.
6.
Hibbert, George IV , Prince of Wales, 62.
7.
Hibbert, George IV , Prince of Wales, 256, n.
8.
Hibbert, George IV , Prince of Wales, 160.
9.
Hibbert, George IV , Regent and King, 157.
10.
Quoted in Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 266.
11.
For a further examination of this issue, see Anna Clark, “Queen Caroline and the Sexual Politics of Popular Culture in London, 1820,” Representations 31 (1990): 47–68; Dror Wahrman, “‘Middle Class’ Domesticity Goes Public: Gender, Class, and Politics from Queen Caroline to Queen Victoria,” Journal of British Studies 32 (1993): 396–432; and Louise Carter, “British Masculinities on Trial in the Queen Caroline Affair of 1820,” Gender & History 20 (2008): 248–69.
12.
Milnes , review of Extracts of the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry, 172.
13.
For the proceedings against Caroline, see Fulford, The Trial of Queen Caroline.
14.
Quoted in New, The Life of Henry Brougham to 1830, 252.
15.
William Hazlitt , The Collected Works of William Hazlitt, A. R. Waller and Arnold Glover, eds., 13 vols. (London: J. M. Dent, 1902–1906), 11: 554.
16.
Anonymous, The New Pilgrim’s Progress; or, A Journey to Jerusalem (London: W. Wright, 1820), back cover.
17.
Berry, Extracts, 3: 249–50.
18.
Aspinal, Letters of King George IV , 1812–1820, 2: 367.
19.
Granville, Harriet Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Countess of , Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, 1810–1845, F. Leveson Gower, ed., 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894), 1: 160.
20.
Greville, The Greville Memoirs, 1: 105.
21.
Coutts was one of Caroline’s bankers. See Part 2.
22.
Anonymous, The New Pilgrim’s Progress; or, A Journey to Jerusalem (London: W. Wright, 1820), 11–17.
23.
Hansard, New Series, 2: 848.
24.
Published in London by John Fairburn, 1820.
25.
#52.
26.
Robins, The Trial of Queen Caroline, 235.
27.
Robins, The Trial of Queen Caroline, 246.
28.
Greville, The Greville Memoirs, 1: 105.
29.
Robins, The Trial of Queen Caroline, 231.
30.
Brougham , The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, 2: 300.
31.
Thomas Creevey , The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence & Diaries of the Late Thomas Creevey, M.P., Herbert Maxwell, ed., 2 vols. (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1904), 1: 322.
32.
Hansard, New Series, 3: 360.
33.
Hansard, New Series, 3: 1196.
34.
Creevey, The Creevey Papers, 1: 323.
35.
Ziegler, Addington, 389.
36.
Harriet Arbuthnot , The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820–1832, Francis Bamford and the Duke of Wellington, eds., 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1950), 1: 57.
37.
Creevey, The Creevey Papers, 1: 330.
38.
Creevey, The Creevey Papers, 1: 323.
39.
Greville, The Greville Memoirs, 1: 106.
40.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 2: 450–52.
41.
Granville, Harriet Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Countess of , Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, 1: 184.
42.
Lord Holland described Gell as “a martyr to the gout,” as being “caustic, droll, and full of valetudinariean spleen,” and wrote that he “always diverts me with his sarcasm and philosophic determination to take the whole world as a lively comedy. He cares very little for anybody, and is never unhappy but from his frequent and severe twinges of gouty pains.” Lord Holland, The Journal of the Hon: Henry Edward Fox, 203, 211, 304, 308. Holland’s appreciation of Gell diminished over time.
43.
Brougham , Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, 497.
44.
Holme, Caroline, 218.
45.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 2: 78–79.
46.
#54.
47.
#55.
48.
#56.
49.
Queen Caroline to the Earl of Liverpool, 29 April 1821. British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Loan 72/3: Liverpool Papers, “Royal—Queen Caroline,” ff. 251–252v.
50.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 454.
51.
#57.
52.
Undated letter in Caroline’s handwriting, Denman Papers, West Sussex Record Office, Denman Papers, ADD MSS/733/1.
53.
Fraser , The Unruly Queen, 455.
54.
Fraser, The Unruly Queen, 456.
55.
Augustus J. C. Hare , The Story of My Life, 6 vols. (London: George Allen, 1896–1900), 2: 15.
56.
Hibbert, George IV : Regent and King, 203.
57.
Fraser, The Unruly Queen, 457.
58.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 145.
59.
Sir Edward Parry, Queen Caroline (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 321.
60.
Lady Anne Hamilton , Secret History of the Court of England, from the Accession of George the Third to the Death of George the Fourth [etc.] (London: William Henry Stevenson, 1832), 180.
61.
Hamilton, Secret History of the Court of England, 182.
62.
Parry, 15.
63.
Holland, Recollections of Past Life, 146.

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Thompson, J. (2019). The Trial of Queen Caroline. In: Queen Caroline and Sir William Gell. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_6
Published: 26 September 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98007-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98008-9
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