Answer of the Princess to the Queen.

The Answer of the Princess of Wales to the Queen.

289

"The Princess of Wales has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a note from the Queen, dated yesterday; and begs permission to return her best thanks to her Majesty, for her gracious condescension, in the willingness expressed by her Majesty, to have communicated to the Illustrious Strangers, who will in all probability be present at her Majesty's Court, the reasons which have induced her Royal Highness not to be present.

"Such communication, as it appears to her Royal Highness, cannot be the less necessary on account of any publicity which it may be in the power of her Royal Highness to give to her motives; and the Princess of Wales therefore entreats the active good offices of her Majesty, upon an occasion wherein the Princess of Wales feels it so essential to her that she should not be misunderstood.

Connaught House, May 26, 1814. CAROLINE, P.”

The Queen to the Princess of Wales.

"Windsor Castle, May 27, 1814.

"The Queen cannot omit to acknowledge the receipt of the Princess of Wales's note of yesterday, although it does not appear to her Majesty to require any other reply than that conveyed to her Royal Highness's preceding letter. CHARLOTTE, R."

Letter of the Princess of Wales to the Prince Regent.

"Sir, I am once more reluctantly compelled to address your Royal Highness, and to inclose, for your inspection, copies of a note which I have had the honour to receive from the Queen, and of the answer which I have thought it my duty to return to her Majesty. It would be in vain for me to inquire into the reasons of the alarming declarations made by your Royal Highness, that you have taken the fixed and unalterable determination never to meet me,

U

290

Princess of Wales to the Regent.

upon any occasion, either in public or private. Of these your Royal Highness is pleased to state yourself to be the only judge. You will perceive by my answer to her Majesty, that I have only been restrained by motives of personal consideration towards her Majesty, from exercising my right of appearing before her Majesty, at the public Drawing Rooms, to be held in the ensuing month.

"But Sir, lest it should be by possibility supposed, that the words of your Royal Highness can convey any insinuation from which I shrink, I am bound to demand of your Royal Highness-what circumstances can justify the proceeding you have thus thought fit to adopt?

"I owe it to myself, to my Daughter, and to the nation, to which I am deeply indebted for the vindication of my honour, to remind your Royal Highness of what you know; that after open persecution and mysterious inquiries, upon undefined charges, the malice of my enemies fell entirely upon themselves; and that I was restored by the King, with the advice of his Ministers, to the full enjoyment of my rank in his Court, upon my complete acquittal. Since his Majesty's lamented illness, I have demanded, in the face of Parliament and the country, to be proved guilty, or to be treated as innocent. I have been declared innocentI will not submit to be treated as guilty.

"Sir, your Royal Highness may possibly refuse to read this letter. But the world must know that I have written it; and they will see my real motives for foregoing, in this instance, the rights of my rank. Occasions, however, may arise (one I trust, is far distant) when I must appear in public, and your Royal Highness must be present also. Can your Royal Highness have contemplated the full extent of your declaration? Has your Royal Highness forgotten the approaching marriage of our daughter, and the possibility of our coronation?

"I wave my rights in a case where I am not absolutely bound to assert them, in order to relieve the Queen, as far as I can, from the painful situation in which she is placed by your Royal Highness; not from any consciousness of blame, not from any doubt of the existence of those rights, or of my own worthiness to enjoy them.

"Sir, the time you have selected for this proceeding is calculated to make it peculiarly galling. Many illustrious Strangers are already arrived in England; amongst others,

Princess of Wales to Lord Liverpool.

291

as I am informed, the Illustrious Heir of the House of Orange, who has announced himself to me as my future son-in-law. From their society I am unjustly excluded. Others are expected, of rank equal to your own, to rejoice with your Royal Highness in the peace of Europe. My Daughter will, for the first time, appear in the splendour and publicity becoming the approaching nuptials of the presumptive Heiress of this Empire. This season your Royal Highness has chosen for treating me with fresh and unprovoked indignity; and of all his Majesty's subjects, I alone am prevented by your Royal Highness from appearing in my place, to partake of the general joy, and am deprived of the indulgence in those feelings of pride and affection permitted to every mother but me.

I am, Sir, your Royal Highness's faithful wife, Connaught House, May 26, 1814. CAROLINE, P.”

(F.)

Letter from her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales to Lord Liverpool, First Minister to the Prince Regent, dated Connaught House, July 25, 1814.

"The Princess of Wales requests Lord Liverpool to lay before the Prince Regent the contents of this letter.

"Actuated by the most urgent motive, that of restoring tranquillity to the Prince Regent, as well as to secure the peace of mind of which she has been for so many years deprived, the Princess of Wales, after mature reflection, has resolved to return to the Continent. This resolution ought not to surprise the Ministers of the Prince Regent, considering the trouble and disagreeable experience of the Princess, for so long a time; and still more, after the indignity and mortification to which she has been exposed, by being withheld from receiving her nearest relations, and the most intimate friends of the late Duke of Brunswick, her illustrious father.

"The Princess is extremely anxious that the Prince Regent should be informed of the motives, and clearly comprehend her past conduct as politically exhibited. In exacting a justification from this noble nation,-her sole pro

.292

Princess of Wales to Lord Liverpool.

tection since the unfortunate indisposition of the King,—she is to be understood as solicitous only to maintain her rights and her honour, which are dearer to her than life itself.

"The Princess of Wales would have undertaken her projected tour long before, if she had not been prevented by the breaking off the projected marriage of the Princess Charlotte with the Prince of Orange. She could not resolve to leave her daughter without protection, at a period so critical. The Prince Regent having planned to establish the new married couple at the Hague, the Princess Charlotte, on that account principally, declined the match. Unwilling to prove any obstacle to future arrangement favourable to the happiness of her Daughter, the Princess of Wales has at length resolved to return to Brunswick, her native country. She may afterwards travel into Italy and Greece, where she may probably be able to select an agreeable abode, and live in it for some years. The Princess flatters herself, that the Prince Regent will have no objection to this design.

The Princess of Wales requests Lord Liverpool to represent to the Prince Regent, that she resigns Montague House, and the title of Ranger of Greenwich Park, in favour of her Daughter, as also the house bequeathed to her by her Mother. The Princess of Wales hopes the Prince Regent will grant this favour, the last she will solicit.

"The Princess embraces this opportunity to explain the motives which have induced her to decline the grant of £50,000 voted to her by the nation in Parliament. She expresses her most lively acknowledgment to this liberal and generous nation for its willingness to grant her such a pension during life; but she has only taken £35,000, because as the gift was intended to support her in her proper rank, and to enable her to hold a Court as became the Wife of the Prince Regent, the receipt of it would interfere with her views of travelling, and her purpose to quit England for a Such is the substance of her present communication to Lord Liverpool, which the Princess would have made before, but for the fear of producing new debates in Parliament. She has, therefore, waited the rising of Parliament, and is now about to depart for Worthing, to embark, not intending to return previously to London.

season.

"The Princess of Wales is happy to assure Lord Liverpool, that she will ever be ardently solicitous for the prosperity and glory of this generous nation."

Princess of Wales to Mr. Whitbread.

293

Letter from the Princess of Wales to Mr. Whitbread, and to his Friends, dated July 25, 1814.

"The Princess of Wales has the pleasure to inform, and frankly to avow to Mr. Whitbread, that she is about to take the most important step in her life. She has embraced the resolution of quitting this country for a time; and has written to Lord Liverpool to immediately inform the Prince Regent of her intention. The Princess incloses a copy of this letter to Mr. Whitbread, to inform himself and friends of the plan of conduct which she has adopted.

"The Princess is so persuaded of the well-known integrity of Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Brougham, that she cannot doubt but they would have proposed such a step, if motives of delicacy had not prevented them. The Princess is deeply penetrated with gratitude for the attentions which they have shown her, at all times and on all occasions. This kindness on their part has withheld her from asking their advice on the present occasion; in every other instance she assures them, she has always followed the suggestions of her advisers and friends, and conformed to their superior intelligence.

No

"Her conscience tells her, that her conduct is worthy of her character and of her sentiments, and will always remain She has had sufficient leisure to reflect maturely before she adopted her present resolution. People who know not the character of the Princess may be disposed to believe, that she has been induced to adopt this measure in a moment of ill-humour; but she takes the Almighty to witness, that she has been intending to travel ever since 1806, although reasons, too long for explanation, have prevented her. person possessed of pride and feeling could endure to be degraded below her rank in this kingdom, as Princess of Wales, or even as a simple individual, bear to be so hated by the Sovereign, as to be debarred from his presence both in public and in private. The Princess of Wales knows not how to support so much debasement and mortification. She cannot allow herself to be treated as a culprit by the Prince and his family, when her innocence has been acknowledged by Ministers and by Parliament, after an investigation which has done away the accusations of traitors and enemies.