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herself, those who are acquainted with the debasing revelations of the Diary of the Times of George the Fourth' know how she received, and used, the disagreement. Without one thought for her daughter's real happiness, she was wholly absorbed in exultation at the defeat of her husband's hopes by that daughter's 'spirited' resistance. She applauded it to the echo, and professed to believe that a plot had been thereby defeated for banishing the young Princess to the Continent, and then declaring her illegitimate! It is edifying to observe that each parent brought this charge against the other. This opposition ultimately led to those measures of increased severity on the part of the Regent which produced the Princess Charlotte's famous flight from Warwick House, in a hackney-coach, on July 12, 1814.

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possession of the house; that I and all the servants were to be dismissed; that she was to be confined at Carlton House for five days, after which she was to be taken to Cranbourne Lodge, to see no one but the Queen once a week; and in the midst of Windsor Forest, where she was that if she did not go immediately, the Prince would sleep at Warwick House that night as well as all the ladies. I begged her to be calm, and advised her to go over as soon as possible, assuring her that her friends would not forget her. She fell on her knees in the greatest agitation, exI wished to stay and comfort her, but she urged claiming, "God Almighty grant me patience!" me to go to the Prince, for fear of greater displeasure. I went to him, and he shut the door; the Bishop was with him. He told me he was sorry to put a lady to inconvenience, but that he wanted my room that evening for the ladies, repeating what Princess Charlotte had already told me. I asked in what I had offended, but he said he made no complaint, and would make none; that he had a right to make any changes he pleased, and that he was blamed for having let things go on as they had done. . . . I then made a low curtsy to him and left the room. What was my astonishment when I could not find Princess Charlotte anywhere, and when at re-length Miss Mercer and her maid, who had dinner, appeared from my bedroom, the latter come (as was often the case) to dress her before crying, and Miss Mercer saying she supposed Princess Charlotte was gone to her mother! The Prince came forward when I returned to the dressing room, and I brought Miss Mercer, who desired I would do so, that she might not be suspected of any thing clandestine. She told him that as she was dressing herself in Princess Charlotte's bed-room, she heard her say she would go to her mother's (Lewis, the dresser, thought when she took her bonnet she was going to Carlton House), and before they could prevent it she had disappeared. The Prince was very cool, and seemed rather pleased, saying he was glad that everybody would now see what she was, and that it would be known on the The Bishop and Miss Mercer offered to go and Continent, and no one would marry her. . . . . look for her, and proposed my accompanying them, which I refused, saying I should wait, for that I did not wish to be in that house-mean

The immediate cause of those measures has, however, not been hitherto known. Miss Knight offers a solution of the question, if we can believe her. She brings Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg now on the scene as pressing his attentions on her mistress, who was by means partial to him, and only ceived him with civility. However, Miss Mercer evidently wished to recommend him.' Had this been true, Miss Mercer could hardly repent of having promoted the event which secured a few short months of happiness to her ill-fated friend. But we believe there is no more foundation for this than for the many similar insinuations with which these pages are filled. Thus much only seems probable, that reports about Prince Leopold united with other causes in determining the Regent to get rid of all the Warwick House establishment, and carry the Princess Charlotte to his own home. And then followed the escapade in question, over which we wish to pause for a few moments, merely to show the apparent hopelessness of arriving at his torical truth in details when an event so notorious, and in which so many took part, is represented with such strange discrepancies of narrative by independent eye-witnesses. The following is Miss Knight's account, omitting only some details about herself, and some sly ill-natured hits at her bête noire Miss Mer

cer:

'About six (in the evening of the 12th of July) the Regent came (to Warwick House), attended by the Bishop only (as I supposed); but he came up alone, and desired I would leave him with Princess Charlotte. He was shut up with her three-quarters of an hour, and afterwards a quarter more with the Bishop and Her Royal Highness. The door, then opened, and she came out in the greatest agony, saying she had but one instant to speak to me, for that the Prince asked for me. I followed her into her dressingroom, when she told me the new ladies were in

ing the Princess of Wales's-but that if I went,
and Princess Charlotte asked me to stay with
her, I could not refuse remaining with her there
returned. He did not come to me, but I heard
or in a prison.
About nine the Bishop
he was gone over to Carlton House, that he had
found Princess Charlotte, but had not brought
her with him. I therefore went immediately to
Connaught Place, and asked to see Princess
Charlotte alone. Lady Charlotte Lindsay, in
waiting on the Princess of Wales, came out to
me and told me that Her Royal Highness was
with her mother, Miss Mercer Elphinstone, and
Mr. Brougham, in the next room, and the
Princess of Wales desired I should walk in. She
added how much the Princess had been surprised
when she heard, by a messenger despatched
from the house to Blackheath (whither she had
gone on business), that Princess Charlotte was

of the same event, thirty years after its occurrence. It must be premised that this cannot be well understood without reading Lord Eldon's succinct narrative of his own share in it, as reported by Mr. Twiss :

'When we arrived I informed her a carriage was at the door, and we would attend her home. But home she would not go. She kicked and bounced, but would not go. Well, to do my office as gently as I could, I told her I was sorry for it, for until she did go, she would be obliged to entertain us, as we would not leave her. At last she accompanied us.

'But this,' says Lord Brougham, 'is a perfect mis-statement, indeed a pure fiction, and there are three persons living who know it to be so, and, having read the above lines, agree in so declaring it. When the Princess's escape became known at Carlton House (for it is not true, as stated by Mr. Twiss, that the Prince and Bishop went to see her at Warwick House, to inform her of the new constitution of her household, and that she asked leave to retire, and escaped by a back-staircase), the Regent sent notice to the heads of the law, and of his own Duchy of Cornwall establishment. Soon after these ar

there, and not finding Mr. Whitbread and another member-I forget whom-to advise with, had sent for Mr. Brougham, and that before she got home the Princess Charlotte had sent for the Duke of Sussex. I still begged to see Princess Charlotte alone, to which Lady Charlotte Lindsay seemed willing to consent; but Miss Mercer, who came in, said she had promised the Regent not to leave her alone with any one. I said, rather stiffly, that she might go with me, and Her Royal Highness withdrew with me into the part of the room separated by columns, when I gave her her seals, to which was annexed a key, and a letter which had come during her absence. She met me with great joy, and told me I was to stay with her, for she had written offering to go to her father on that condition, and that she would retain her maid and receive the visits of Miss Mercer. We waited some time for the return of the Bishop with the answer to these proposals, and at length I offered to go to Carlton House, and endeavour to see the Prince. I did, but could not see him. I was told that I might see the Chancellor or Lord Liverpool. I answered I was ready to see either of them, when I was ushered into a room where the Chancellor and Lord Ellenborough were seated at each end of a long table. The former in- rived, each in a separate hackney-coach, at formed me that the Bishop was returned with Connaught Terrace, the Prince of Wales's resithe answer that her Royal Highness must sub- dence. There were the Chancellor, Lord Ellenmit unconditionally, on which I replied that I borough, Mr. Adam, Chancellor of the Duchy had nothing more to do but return to her, and of Cornwall, Mr. Leach, the Bishop of Salisbury, take her maid and night-things, as she might be and afterwards the Duke of Kent. There had obliged to remain that night in Connaught already come to join the Princess Charlotte Miss Place. . . . . . I went back to Princess Charlotte, Mercer, now Lady Keith and Countess de Flataking with me Mrs. Lewis, her dresser; and bault, who came by the Regent's express desire when I arrived I found the Bishop had stated as his daughter's most confidential friend; Mr. she must submit to return to her father uncon- Brougham (for whom the young Princess had ditionally, holding out the hope that Miss Mercer sent as a person she had already often conwould be allowed to visit her. I saw the letter sulted); the Duke of Sussex, whose attendance she had written. It was very flattering to me; he had taken the precaution of asking, knowbut I did not wish to have been made an objecting that he happened to dine in the immediate of controversy between her and her father. It was two in the morning before the Duke of York arrived to take her away. I was too much affected to follow her down stairs; and I afterwards heard from the Duke of Sussex that a hackney-coach followed the Duke of York with the Chancellor and two other lawyers in it, as also that when dear Princess Charlotte arrived at Carlton House she was made to remain in the court-yard for more than half-anhour, while they were debating within how they would receive her."*

Let us now compare with Miss Knight's story the account given by Lord Brougham †

* Vol. i. p. 304-310. Some slight additional details are given at the beginning of vol. ii.

We quote from the Law Review, vol. i.: 'Life of Lord Eldon,' attributed to Lord Brougham by Lord Campbell, in his 'Lives of the Chancellors.' There is a separate account in the Edinburgh Review' for 1838, which is commonly ascribed to Lord Brougham also. And, lastly, there is the contemporaneous account in the Whig paper, The Morning Chronicle,' of July 14th, 1814 (Miss Knight, vol. i. p. 311), which, from internal evidence, looks very like a communiqué from Mr. Brougham.' All three vary in some particulars.

neighbourhood; the Princess of Wales, too, had arrived from her villa at Blackheath, where she was when Mr. Brougham and Miss Mercer arrived. Her Royal Highness was accompanied by Lady Charlotte Lindsay, then in waiting. Dinner had been ordered by the Princess Charlotte, and the party, except the Duke of Sussex, who did not immediately arrive, were at table, when from time to time the arrival of the great personages sent by the Regent was announced, as each of their backney-coaches in succession came into the street. Some were suffered to nience than for state; but the presumptive remain in these vehicles, better fitted for conveheiress to the Crown having chosen that conshe was now delighting with her humour and veyance, it was the humour of the party, which interesting by her high spirits, like a bird flown become familiar with a residence which had so from a cage, that these exalted subjects should lately been graced with the occupancy of their future sovereign.' Exceptions, however, were made, and the Duke of York immediately was asked into a room on the ground floor. It is an undoubted fact, that not one of the persons sent by the Regent, not even the Duke of York, ever

*Life of Lord Eldon, vol. ii, p. 523.

was in any of the apartments above-stairs for one instant until the young Princess had agreed to leave the house and return home. The Princess of Wales saw the Duke of York for a few minutes below; and this was the only communication between the company above and those below-of whom all but the Duke and the Bishop remained outside the house. After a great deal of discussion, the Princess asked Mr. Brougham. what he, on the whole, would advise her to do. He said, "Return to Warwick House or to Carlton House, and on no account pass a night out of it." She was exceedingly affected-even to tears-and asked if he too refused to stand by her. The day was beginning to break-a Westminster election to reinstate Lord William (after the sentence on him which abolished the pillory and led to his reelection) was to be held that day at ten o'clock. Mr. Brougham led the young Princess to the window, and said, "I have but to show you to the multitude which in a few hours will fill these streets and that park, and possibly Carlton House will be pulled down; but in an hour after the soldiers will be called out, blood will flow, and if your Royal Highness lives a hundred years, it will never be forgotten that your running away from your home and your father was the cause of the mischief; and you may depend upon it the English people so hate blood that you will never get over it." She at once perceived the truth of this statement, and, without any kind of hesitation, agreed to see her uncle below, and accompany him home. But she told him she would not go in any carriage except one of her father's, as her character might suffer; she therefore retired to the drawing

room until a royal coach was sent for, and she

then went home with the Duke of York.'

were disturbed by the Bishop knocking loudly at the door of her bedroom; and the Princess, thinking that it was her father come to take her away, rushed through the passage which led to Miss Knight's apartment (which also communicated with the back stairs). Miss Mercer, on this, retreated to finish dressing in Mrs. Lewis's room. There was a window in this room which overlooked Warwick Lane; and the first suspicion which those in the room had of the Princess's flight was from hearing some persons who were working in the street say, Why, sure it is the Princess who has run up the lanej" . . The Princess had her bonnet on long before her interview with the Regent. Her flight was sudden and unpremeditated, under the influence of terror.'

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The next statement of Lord Brougham on which we are forced to comment is his description of the 'dinner at Connaught Place,' and of the events which there took place. It would appear from this that 'the party,' including Mr. Brougham himself, sat down to that jocose meal, Lord Eldon, Lord Ellenborough, and other dignitaries of state, remaining outside, in their hackney-coaches,' not even asked in-doors, while the Princess Charlotte the terrified young creature who had just fled thither for protection against what her imagination represented as a frightful persecution-amused herself, and the rest of the company, by being extremely facetious at the expense of the dignitaries aforesaid! Such a story, if true, would scarcely increase our respect for the Princess, who, young as she was, would have been guilty of strangely indecorous trifling at such a moment, in a party of very unwonted associates. But apparently his Lordship's playful memory has here again deceived him. Unless we are very much misinformed, Mr. Brougham was not one of the guests at that 'dinner' at all. A hasty meal had been served in a small room adjoining the drawing-room, to which none sat down except the Princess of Wales, Princess Charlotte, Lady Charlotte Lindsay, and Miss Mercer. Mr. Brougham-sent for as a legal adviser, not a guest-arrived while they were at table. The supposed concourse of hackney-coaches in front of the house during the dinner seems to be simply a melodramatic incident. Lords Eldon and Ellenborough very certainly were not there. We have seen that Miss Knight went to Connaught Place some time after the Princess's

So far his Lordship. We omit the singular story which follows, about the 'protocol executed in sexplicate original,' at Connaught House, before the Princess left it, solemnly recording her resolution never to marry the Prince of Orange, to which we find no allusion elsewhere Leaving out the contradiction of the statement in the 'Life of Lord Eldon' (on which more presently), it will be seen that his Lordship commences by declaring that it is not true that the Prince and Bishop went to see the Princess at Warwick House at all.' This assertion is sufficient of itself to show the extreme defectiveness of his Lordship's memory. The fact that they did go to Warwick House is stated in all the narratives of the time, and has now received confirmation, if any such had been needed, from Miss Knight's plain narrative. We have also seen another authentic version of the occurrences at War-flight; found the above-named ladies there, wick House, slightly differing from Miss Knight's, but only by such minute discrepancies as occur every day between straightforward witnesses. After the Princess's first impetuous declaration that she would go to her mother,' she and the one or two friends who were endeavouring to calm her mind

VOL. CXI.

3

and Mr. Brougham with them; waited there for some time for an answer from the Bishop of Salisbury to certain proposals; and then went to Carlton House, where she found the Chancellor and Lord Ellenborough 'seated at each end of a long table.' By this time it must have been late at night; and as the two

Miss Knight that it was supposed Princess Charlotte must have legal advisers, as her letters were not those of a woman. 'I said that he must recollect she had gone through a course of study on the laws of England, and by his own observation to me one eve

legal sages were at Carlton House at the two ends of a long table, it is quite clear they were not, as Lord Brougham supposes, sitting as butts for his and the Princess Charlotte's pleasantries in front of Connaught Terrace,' as his Lordship calls it by the figure prolepsis. Miss Knight goes on to say, it was two inning at Carlton House was allowed to be the morning before the Duke of York arrived to take her (the Princess) away. I afterwards heard from the Duke of Sussex that a hackney-coach followed him (the Duke of York), with the Chancellor and two other lawyers in it. Lord Eldon, therefore, did not arrive until the very end of the little drama; and then, no doubt, took place the scene between him and the Princess, which Mr. Twiss makes him describe in a style more graphical than refined. Except to Lord Brougham-who doubtless believes that his predecessor had an innate propensity for unnecessary lying-it would have seemed strange that Lord Eldon or his biographer should go out of the way to invent a false account of an indifferent occurrence, in which, moreover, the Chancellor does not play a very dignified part. But we have other authority for saying that Lord Eldon's story is simply true.

The next point in Lord Brougham's narrative on which commentary becomes indispensable is not quite so much de minimis as those we have referred to. Mr. Brougham,' he says, 'was sent for by the young Princess, as a person she had already often consulted.' Mr. Brougham, as all the world knows, was the legal and partly the political adviser of her mother, the Princess of Wales. Miss Knight, we have seen, tells quite a different story, namely, that it was the Princess of Wales herself who had sent for Mr. Brougham,' and that before her mother's arrival Princess Charlotte had sent for the Duke of Sussex.* Now we need not say that on the question who sent for him, mother or daughter, Lord Brougham's own direct statement ought to be a very different authority from Miss Knight's hearsay. But it is impossible not to remark how signally his Lordship's memory has failed him as to other parts of this transaction. It is certainly strange passing strange that though poor Princess Charlotte could not well have had many 'secrets' from the prying eyes at Warwick House, neither its inmates nor any one else except his Lordship himself seem to have been the least aware that she had consulted him often, or consulted him at all.

one

On occasion, in April, 1814, she wrote a letter to the Prince Regent, touching her proposed marriage, which made the Prince remark to

*Lord Brougham, as we have seen, says that he brought the Duke of Sussex.

mistress of the subject. He smiled, and said Her Royal Highness turned his arms against himself.'-(Vol. i., p. 286.) And we know that those who were far nearer to her heart than Miss Knight believed that she had no legal adviser at all.' Thus much must be said that if it is true that the young Princess, without the knowledge of her own closest intimates, was wont to consult her mother's professional counsellor and her father's ablest political enemy, it shows, better than any other evidence, the evil influence attained over her by that mother, shows an amount of duplicity on her own part for which we should not have been prepared, and justifies in substance, if not in point of taste and judgment, the measures which that father adopted or threatened towards her.

As to the not very important question whose influence it was which prevailed on the young princess to return to her father, the actors in the scene seem all to disagree, partly from that natural tendency which every one has on such occasions to represent himself as the first performer. The Duke of Buckingham says (Memoirs of the Court of England under the Regency') that it was the Princess of Wales who induced her daughter to go back, being for her own part merely anxious to encounter no obstacles to her project for leaving the country. 'It is certain, says Miss Knight, pointedly, 'that on the fatal morning it struck me that the Prince of Wales was more anxious for the removal of Princess Charlotte out of her house than the Prince was to get her into his.' Lord Eldon evidently thought that he prevailed on the Princess to leave, through the awful threat that he and Lord Ellenborough would stay with her till she did. The Duke of Sussex told Sir Samuel Romilly that he and Brougham persuaded her to go to Carlton House.'-('Diary of Sir Ramuel Romilly,' iii, 145.) Lord Brougham himself, as we see from his narrative, has no doubt that alone he did it.' Evidently all the parties pulled together with a hearty goodwill, though from a singular variety of motives; and their united efforts overcame the resolution of an unhappy child, probably more frightened than obstinate.

We should be extremely reluctant, in conclusion, to disturb the picturesque effect of that well-told private scene at the window between the Princess and her adviser which ends Lord Brougham's narrative, and which

has become, as it were, a part of received | trenching on her father's right to control her English history. Very few men would have movements? There is no reason for suphad the presence of mind and readiness of wit posing that the Regent would, on his own to address so rhetorical an argument to an account, have objected to so trifling an indulagitated young Princess at such a moment; gence. Such unnecessary cruelty would have but no one will deny that the hero of the tale been inconsistent with the rest of his conduct, might have been one of those few. Never- which, as we have said, was in all this matter theless, there are some details which our pro- rather arbitrary and injudicious than barsaic minds find a difficulty in understanding. barous. And if he had insisted on this point, 'The Westminster election' gave occasion for what a fine opportunity for his opponents to the pointed warning; but there was no West-make capital' out of such a display of senseminster election that day: it took place on less tyranny! But, in truth, the reader will Saturday the 16th, and the preliminary Palace not have forgotten Miss Knight's shrewd hint, Yard meeting had been on Monday the 11th. that the mother was far more anxious to get 'The day was beginning to break' is an es- rid of the daughter than the father to get her sential feature in the composition-that is, it back. And it is clear, that he must have was past three o'clock. The Princess then been prepared for the contingency of her reconsented; but before she would go, a car- maining at Connaught House that night; for riage had to be sent for from Connaught we have seen that Miss Knight was allowed Place to Carlton House, made ready there, to take thither 'her maid and night things.' and brought back to Connaught House again. Unfortunately the real reason for this preciAt this rate, the Princess could scarcely have pitancy seems plain enough. Every man in reached her father's before it was broad day-that house well knew-every one, probably, light and the streets filling-a singular circumstance, which no contemporary mentions. Now Miss Knight says 'it was two in the morning before the Duke of York arrived to take her away,' and implies that she did not stay long afterwards. Not a word about sending for a carriage; the Duke had evidently brought one. The 'Morning Chronicle' says, 'At a little past three Her Royal Highness was conveyed to Carlton House.'*

After this, one may fairly ask with Sir Walter Raleigh, what is history?' Had we an account of some event of antiquity of the same apparent authenticity with Lord Brougham's narrative of that in which he took part at Connaught House, what Niebuhr would venture to question it? and yet, as soon as another eye-witness is evoked from the shades, and the newspapers of the day are consulted, they flatly and irreconcileably contradict him!

One question, however, of more than mere historical curiosity forces itself on the reader of this little domestic novellette. Why were all parties the Duke of Sussex and Mr. Brougham, quite as much as the Duke of York and Lord Eldon-so vehemently anxious to get the Princess Charlotte, despite her tears and sufferings, to Carlton House immediately? The night was far spent, or rather it was already morning. After many hours of fatigue and agitation, what more tural than that she should repose a few hours longer under the roof of her own mother? Why could not this be effected without en

except the young princess herself and Miss Mercer knew-that Connaught House was not a residence in which the heiress of the Crown could with propriety remain for a single night. She could not be exposed to encounter the Sapios' and the rest of the goodly society whose doings are chronicled in Lady Charlotte Bury's pages; and her mother's character and temper afforded no guarantee that she should be spared a single item of such disgrace. Such was doubtless the motive which acted, and very properly acted, on the Princess of Wales's own advisers; and yet those very advisers were ready to take the first occasion afterwards of reiterating their conviction of that lady's absolute innocence, and the causeless jealousy of her illustrious persecutor!

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With the Warwick House escapade ends Miss Knight's appearance on the historical stage. She was dismissed, as we have seen, that evening. She kicked and bounced a good deal' as Lord Eldon would have phrased it; 'begged to know in what she had offended;' but the Regent answered, he made no complaints and should make none.' She was excessively angry when the Morning Post' informed mankind, that by means of one of the most pious and virtuous characters of the land, it was soon discovered that many of the Princess's associates were persons possessing na-pernicious sentiments alike hostile to the daughter, the father, and the country,' and wrote to the Bishop of Salisbury to know if she was one of the obnoxious associates' in question. What answer the pious and virtuous prelate made does not appear. She once more endeavoured to mollify the Prince Regent, whom she assured 'I have no acquain

*The Edinburgh Reviewer says, 'returned to Warwick House between four and five o'clock.' We know that she never returned to Warwick

House at all.

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