Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/149

the accession to the throne of George II, were altogether disappointed when that event was brought about by the sudden death of his father on 9 June 1727. Not only was Lord Bathurst disappointed of a coronet by the veto of Queen Caroline (Reminiscences, 296); but another friend of Mrs. Howard, Sir Spencer Compton, was, at the direct suggestion of the queen, deposed from the height of prime-minister-designate. At the reception held by the king and queen at Leicester House on the day after the notice of their accession had reached them, the queen carefully distinguished Lady Walpole, and the imbecility of Sir Spencer made it easy for her to give effect to her wish. Beyond a doubt she was strongly influenced by Walpole's offer, carried out by a parliamentary vote on 9 July following, to obtain for her from parliament a jointure of 100,000l. a year, in lieu of 50,000l. as proposed by Sir Spencer Compton. But there were other reasons which had long made her favourable to Walpole; she was fully capable of recognising his merits, she was on good terms with his supporter the Duke of Devonshire, and, while always respectful to her, he had never paid court to Mrs. Howard (Coxe, ii. 284 seqq.; cf. Walpoliana, i. 86-7). From this time onward the part played by the queen in the political affairs of Great Britain may be said to have determined itself. Her support of Walpole was all but unfaltering. In 1730, as she observed the growing misunderstanding between Walpole and Townshend, she steadily adhered to the former, and helped to secure his victory (Coxe, ii. 382—4; cf. Reminiscences, 306). In 1733 she not only supported the minister in his excise scheme so courageously as on its withdrawal to have the honour of being burnt in effigy with him by the London mob (Hervey, i. 206), but she inspired the king with a steadfast resolution not to drop the author of the scheme with the scheme itself (ib. 193-5). In the South Sea Company inquiry which ensued in the lords, she eagerly strove, by private persuasions addressed to several peers, to avert a ministerial defeat (ib. 233). In the same and in the following year her action in the Polish succession question was affected by the arguments of Walpole and Hervey to such a degree that, though still in favour of war, she contrived to convince the king of the expediency of peace (ib. i. 262, 271-2, ii. 61; cf. Coxe, ii. 207). It would seem, however, that before the election of 1734 the queen shared the king's temporary distrust in the prospects of the ministry (Hervey, i. 339). During her later regencies the queen and Walpole did everything by themselves (ib. ii. 181), and in 1736 the queen aided the minister in inducing the king to abandon his scheme of a northern league (Coxe, iii. 260). Such was the political intimacy between 'the king's two ears,' as Lord Hervey called them (ii. 107), that Walpole was jealous even of the confidence she reposed in the faithful Lord Hervey (Hervey, iii. 234), and such her trust in the minister, that shortly before her death she recommended the king to his care instead of asking for him the favour of the king (Coxe, iii. 386-7; Reminiscences, 307). The general character of the relations between the king and the queen were more paradoxical. It was said that the alkali of her temper sweetened the acid of his (Hervey, iii. 85). She governed him primarily by his admiration for her person (Reminiscences, 304; Hervey, i. 293-300), but almost equally by her complaisance, which knew no bounds (see, to quote but one instance, Lord Hervey's account, ii. 168, of her treatment of his passion for Madame de Walmoden, afterwards countess of Yarmouth). Lastly, she governed him by means of the tact which enabled her to appear not to govern the vainest of men (Hervey, i. 334; Reminiscences, 305). In return he treated her, on the whole, as well as his essentially selfish nature and his vaingloriousness in matters of gallantry would allow. About 1735 a change for the worse was thought observable in his behaviour towards her (Hervey, ii. 205), but she manifested much emotion when in December 1736 he was thought to have imperilled his life in a storm at sea (ib. iii. 6 seqq.); and when he lost her in the following year, there was no doubt as to the genuineness of his grief. In no sentiment was she more entirely at one with him than in her detestation of their eldest son, Frederick, prince of Wales. Even Croker cannot account for the early beginning or for the intensity of the queen's animosity against the prince (Hervey, iii. 54 note; see, however, ib. 276 and ii. 370); nor does she seem ever to have heartily entered into the notable scheme in favour of her second son for severing Hanover from Great Britain, though it might in the event of her husband's death have secured her a convenient retreat (ib. iii. 220 seqq.) At the time of her death the popular imagination was greatly occupied with the fact that she refused an interview to her hated first-born, and Pope was at pains to preserve her refusal from oblivion in a classic sneer; but though she must be held personally responsible for the decision (ib. 307-8), there is something little short of hypocrisy in treating it as inexcusable. Her second son was beloved by both his parents; of the daughters, the Princess Caroline was