Abstract
The marriage of George, Prince of Wales, and Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick, in 1795 was a disaster from its first moment. George loathed his bride and rejected her, but was unable to escape the marriage. Caroline responded in kind. Soon the couple were at war. Expelled from her estranged husband’s social and political life, Caroline developed a coterie of her own, composed of opposition politicians, writers, and scholars. Although Caroline had been systematically deprived of education, she greatly admired intellectual accomplishment. One of the new additions to her circle was the distinguished classical scholar Sir William Gell.
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Notes
- 1.
Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick : An Historical Study, 1735–1806 (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), 17.
- 2.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 15–16.
- 3.
Fitzmaurice, Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick , 16, n.
- 4.
Two of the three elder brothers were mentally impaired; the other was blind.
- 5.
For Caroline’s mature views on religion, see #16.
- 6.
For his choice of Caroline, see Christopher Hibbert, George IV, Prince of Wales (London: Longmans, 1972), 153.
- 7.
Holme, Caroline, 11.
- 8.
John Doran, Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, 4 rev. ed., 2 vols. (London: Spottiswoode, 1875), 2: 205.
- 9.
Holme, Caroline, 23.
- 10.
Holme, Caroline, 32.
- 11.
John Gardner, Poetry and Popular Protest: Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 166; Jane Robins, The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair That Nearly Ended a Monarchy (New York: Free Press, 2006), 17–18.
- 12.
Roger Fulford, The Trial of Queen Caroline (London: Batsford, 1967), 55.
- 13.
John Brooke, King George III (London: Constable, 1972), 550.
- 14.
Holme, Caroline, 33.
- 15.
Holme, Caroline, 54.
- 16.
Holme, Caroline, 53.
- 17.
William Wadsworth and Dorothy Wadsworth, Letters of William and Dorothy Wadsworth, Beth Darlington, ed. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), 213.
- 18.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 14.
- 19.
Sylvester Douglas, The Diaries of Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie , Francis Bickley, ed., 2 vols. (London: Constable, 1928), 2: 92.
- 20.
“As for the P---ss of W.,” Lady Hester wrote, “I did not care for her. She was a nasty, vulgar, impudent woman, that was not worth telling a lie about. I never could feel for her.” Hester Lucy Stanhope, Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope: As Related by Herself in Conversations with Her Physician; Comprising Her Opinions and Anecdotes of Some of the Most Remarkable Persons of Her Time, Charles Lewis Meryon, ed., 3 vols. (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), 1: 306–8.
- 21.
Princess Caroline to Queen Charlotte, 21 November 1812, British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Liverpool Papers, “Royal—Queen Caroline,” Loan 72/3, ff. 4–8.
- 22.
Alison Plowden, Caroline & Charlotte: The Regent’s Wife and Daughter 1795–1821 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989), 74.
- 23.
A somewhat more regular publication eventually occurred: Anonymous, “The Book!” or, the Proceedings and Correspondence Upon the Subject of the Inquiry into the Conduct of Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, Under a Commission Appointed by the King in the Year 1806. Faithfully Copied from Authentic Documents. To Which is Prefixed, a Narrative of the Recent Events that Have Led to the Publication of the Original Documents. With a Statement of Facts Relative to the Child, Now under the Protection of Her Royal Highness (London: Richard Edwards, 1813).
- 24.
Bury, The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, 1: 102.
- 25.
Henry, Lord Brougham, The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, Written by Himself, 3 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1871), 2: 113. A number of Caroline’s letters to various correspondents during this time are preserved in British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Add. MS. 63172. They are mostly written in French and signed “Amélie.”
- 26.
Bodleian Library, Department of Manuscripts, MS Eng. Misc. d. 226.
- 27.
Thomas Moore, The Journal of Thomas Moore, Wilfred S. Dowden, ed., 6 vols. (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983), 1: 363.
- 28.
Charlotte Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV (London: Henry Colburn, 1839), 4: 51.
- 29.
Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV , 1: 8.
- 30.
Bury, Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV , 4: 90.
- 31.
Fraser, The Unruly Queen, 217.
- 32.
Quarterly Review, 121 (January 1838): 150. Lady Charlotte Bury (1775–1861) was mostly known to Caroline as Lady Charlotte Campbell, but is best remembered today as Lady Charlotte Bury because of the 1908 edition of her memoirs. The daughter of the 5th Duke of Argyll, in 1796 Lady Charlotte married John Campbell, who died in 1809. She married the Reverend John Bury in 1818. Her book originally appeared anonymously in 1838 with the title Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV , Comprising the Secret History of the Court, During the Reigns of George III and George IV, Interspersed with Original Letters from the Late Queen Caroline, the Princess Charlotte, and from Various Other Distinguished Persons, and under her name the following year. A definitive edition was later published entitled The Diary of a Lady-in Waiting, A. Francis Steuart, ed., 2 vols. (London: John Lane, 1908). Also worthy of note is Virginia Woolf’s review of this edition of the book: “The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting,” reprinted in Andrew McNeillie, ed., The Essays of Virginia Woolf, 3 vols. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), 1: 195–200. It has been again published in vols. 1–2 of Women’s Court and Society Memoirs, Amy Culley, ed. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009).
- 33.
Brougham, The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, 2: 111.
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Thompson, J. (2019). Princess Caroline. In: Queen Caroline and Sir William Gell. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98008-9_1
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