Caroline the Queen

Behind Bubb’s back Frederick was apt to laugh at the easy ma

Frederick was important. Bolingbroke said so. He was ill-treated by his father, but it would not always be so. Soon he would be found a wife; his debts would be paid and his father would be forced to give him an income commensurate with his position.

Frederick was begi

Townshend had asked for a place in his household and got it. That, thought Frederick, would be a blow to his father and old Walpole. Occasional meetings with Bolingbroke, listening to commiseration on his ill-treatment, pla

Now his greatest pleasure was to bring discomfort and embarrassment to his parents.

So on these occasions when A

The fact that Walpole was uneasy was a great delight to his enemies, who said that it was the same story all over again. Once the present King had held a second Court in Leicester House in defiance of his Father’s at St James’s.

Now here was Frederick Prince of Wales defying his father.

A

‘There might have been more,’ said Bubb, ‘but half the Court is at the Haymarket.’

‘Oh, Handel! ‘ cried A

‘Buononcini is a fine musician,’ said Bubb. ‘How does he compare with Handel? His Highness will tell us, doubtless.’

‘They are different,’ said Frederick. ‘Handel is so German and Buononcini typically Italian.’

‘I suppose I am very stupid with no taste,’ sighed A

‘You could never be stupid,’ said Frederick, kissing her hand.

‘No,’ pouted A

‘And,’ whispered some malicious voice, ‘deluded Fred into thinking he was his.’

But no one heard or even cared to listen, for so many of those present believed it would be profitable to support the Prince’s party, as no one had a chance of breaking into Walpole’s.

‘Buononcini is a fine musician,’ said the Prince.

Then everyone began comparing him with Handel and declaring that Handel was heavy, obsessed with religious subjects, and above all dull. Buononcini’s was gay, as music should be. It was a mistake to delude oneself into thinking that because music was dull it was good.

And the King and the Queen and Princess A

‘Buononcini should set up in opposition,’ said Bubb. ‘I’d wager Handel would still command the bigger audience.’ ‘What will you wager?’ asked Frederick.

Two thousand.’

‘Make it five and I’ll take you on.’

Dodington agreed and the bet was made. When the Prince betted others must too and that evening nothing else was talked of but Italian and the German musicians—not so much their merits but who could draw the bigger crowds, for that was to be the test.

Buononcini must have his rival theatre, but it was not difficult to obtain backers for a proposition so favoured by the Prince.

Soon at the theatre in Lincoln’s I

The Princess Royal was furious, seeing in this her brother’s hatred of herself and his parents; and that he should direct this against her beloved music master was more than she could bear.

‘It will be useless,’ she stormed to Amelia and Caroline.

‘Lincoln’s I

But music had little to do with the affair. The King’s Court was dull; the Prince’s was becoming more lively. To it went all the rebels, all the young who wanted a change; and the way in which they could show their willingness to follow the Prince was to go to the theatre in Lincoln’s I

A

‘Frederick is deliberately flouting us all,’ she declared; and the Queen agreed with her.

As for the King, he had hated his son from the first and he was ready to make a state occasion of a visit to the Haymarket.

And each week it became more and more obvious that the audience at the Haymarket was growing less and less and that at Lincoln’s I

There came a night when the King, the Queen, with the Princesses and young William, all seated in the royal box, were the only audience for the Handel opera.

To make this more humiliating the roads were jammed on the way to Lincoln’s I

The Prince had won his wager. The King was mightily discomfited; Handel and the Haymarket were in financial difficulties; and Walpole and the Queen were worried.

This was the full cycle.

The Prince of Wales had now come into the open as the enemy of the King and Queen.

Sarah Churchill’s Bargain

THERE was a woman who watched the antics of the Court with malicious pleasure. She was one of the richest women in England and had at one time been the most powerful. This was Sarah, the widowed Duchess of Marlborough.

Her husband had died in 1722 and since then she had lost the zest for life except when she was quarrelling. Consequently she gave herself up to this, which was to her an exciting pastime.

She had had a glorious quarrel with John Vanbrugh over the building of Blenheim; she had others with all the members of her family in turn and especially her only two living daughters. She had turned her attention to her grandchildren and the story was current that she had blacked the face on a painting of A

Therefore she must quarrel with the most important man in the country; and no quarrel meant quite so much to Sarah as her quarrel with Sir Robert Walpole.

It was galling for her, who had been the wife of the greatest General of his age, who had ruled him and ruled Queen A

Marlborough was dead and she had to be doing something all the time to forget that depressing fact. The only time when her face softened, when she felt lonely and defenceless was when she thought of him in the days of his prime—the handsomest man alive she had thought, and a genius among his fellows—and remembered then that he was gone for ever.