George I. came to England without his wife, the Princess of Zelle. Years before, he had arrested her and placed her in close confinement in Ahlden Castle, on account of her intrigue with Philip, Count Konigsmark, whom some say George I. suspected of being the actual father of the Electoral Prince George, afterwards George II. To use the language of a writer patronized by George, Prince of Wales, in 1808, "The coldness between George I. and his son and successor, George II., may be said to have been almost coeval with the existence of the latter." Our King, George I., described by Thackeray as a "cold, selfish libertine," had Konigsmark murdered in the palace of Heranhausen; confined his wife, at twenty-eight years of age, in a dungeon, where she remained until she was sixty; and when George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Hanover, tried to get access to his mother, George Lewis, then Elector of Hanover, arrested Prince George also, and it is said, would have put him to death if the Emperor of Germany had not protected him as a Prince of the German Empire. During the reign of George II., Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom his father denounced as a "changeling," published an account of how George I. had turned Frederick's father out of the palace. These Guelphs have been a loving family. The Edinburgh Review declares that "the terms on which the eldest sons of this family have always lived with their fathers have been those of distrust, opposition, and hostility." Even after George Lewis had ascended the throne of England, his hatred to George Augustus was so bitter, that there was some proposition that James, Earl Berkeley and Lord High Admiral, should carry off the Prince to America and keep him there.
Thackeray says: "When George I. made his first visit to Hanover, his son was appointed regent during the Royal absence. But this honor was never again conferred on the Prince of Wales; he and his father fell out presently. On the occasion of the christening of his second son, a Royal row took place, and the Prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of Newcastle's face, called him a rogue, and provoked his august father. He and his wife were turned out of St. James's, and their princely children taken from them, by order of the Royal head of the family. Father and mother wept piteously at parting from their little ones. The young ones sent some cherries, with their love, to papa and mamma, the parents watered the fruit with their tears. They had no tears thirty-five years afterwards, when Prince Frederick died, their eldest son, their heir, their enemy."
A satirical ballad on the expulsion of Prince George from St. James's Palace, which was followed by the death of the newly-christened baby Prince, is droll enough to here repeat: —
The King then took his gray goose quill,
And dip't it o'er in gall;
And, by Master Vice Chamberlain,
He sent to him this scrawl:
"Take hence yourself, and eke your spouse,
Your maidens and your men;
Your trunks, and all your trumpery,
Except your chil-de-ren."
The Prince secured with nimble haste
The Artillery Commission;
And with him trudged full many a maid,
But not one politician.
Up leapt Lepel, and frisked away,
As though she ran on wheels;
Miss Meadows made a woful face,
Miss Howe took to her heels.
But Belenden I needs must praise,
Who, as down stairs she jumps,
Sang "O'er the hills and far away,"
Despising doleful dumps.
Then up the street they took their way,
And knockt up good Lord Grant-ham;
Higgledy-piggledy they lay,
And all went rantam scantam.
Now sire and son had played their part,
What could befall beside?
Why, the poor babe took this to heart,
Kickt up its heels, and died.
Mahon, despite all his desire to make out the best for the Whig revolution and its consequences, occasionally makes some pregnant admissions: "The jealousy which George I. entertained for his son was no new feeling. It had existed even at Hanover, and had since been inflamed by an insidious motion of the Tories that out of the Civil List £100, -000 should be allotted as a separate revenue for the Prince of Wales. This motion was overruled by the Ministerial party, and its rejection offended the Prince as much as its proposal had the King… In fact it is remarkable… that since that family has reigned, the heirs-apparent have always been on ill terms with the sovereign. There have been four Princes of Wales since the death of Anne, and all four have gone into bitter opposition." "That family," said Lord Carteret one day in full Council, "always has quarrelled, and always will quarrel, from generation to generation."
"Through the whole of the reign of George I., and through nearly half of the reign of George II.," says Lord Macaulay, "a Tory was regarded as the enemy of the reigning house, and was excluded from all the favors of the Crown. Though most of the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were appointed deans and bishops. In every County, opulent and well-descended Tory squires complained that their names were left out of the Commission of the Peace, while men of small estate and of mean birth, who were for toleration and excise, septennial parliaments and standing armies, presided at Quarter Sessions, and became deputy-lieutenants."
In attacking the Whigs, my object is certainly not to write in favor of the Tories, but some such work is needful while so many persons labor under the delusion that the Whigs have always been friends to liberty and progress.
Although George I. brought with him no wife to England, he was accompanied by at least two of his mistresses, and our peerage roll was enriched by the addition of Madame Kielmansegge as Countess of Darlington, and Mademoiselle Erangard Melosine de Schulenberg as Duchess of Kendal and Munster, Baroness of Glastonbury, and Countess of Feversham. These peeresses were received with high favor by the Whig aristocracy, although the Tories refused to countenance them, and "they were often hooted by the mob as they