Carolines Behaving Badly: Scandal at the Georgian Court

Part I: Caroline of Ansbach

The Hanoverians were a scandalous lot, even when one considers their predecessors on the English throne. This was rather an achievement, especially when you consider how dull the Hanoverians were. There were exceptions, of course, as in any family; but on the whole: very dull. Most of their scandals were family quarrels of one kind or another. The Hanoverians suffered from what Lucy Worsley calls the “reversionary problem”. A “reversion” is the promise of an office or job in the event of a future vacancy. The heir to the throne has the greatest reversion of all – being monarch – but he or she must wait until their parent is dead to achieve it. Worse, the heirs are hamstrung in terms of pursuing alternate meaningful careers in the meantime; not exactly a recipe for personal growth. The reversionary problem is also apt to create tension even in the most well-adjusted of families … which the Hanoverians were NOT. From the beginning, they established a highly toxic pattern of father-heir dysfunction, which persisted into the 20^th century – Queen Victoria notoriously sidelined her son, Bertie, from any involvement in state matters until he was 60 and she was in her grave. [Their descendant, King Charles, had the longest wait of all: 74 years.]

The Hanoverians offer us a buffet of scandals, but it’s always the women who interest me the most so our newsletter is All About Caroline.

Three of them, to be precise: Caroline of Ansbach, Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, and Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel.

Let’s dig in.

The first Caroline, chronologically speaking, was born in March 1683, the daughter of the Margrave John Frederick of Brandeburg-Ansbach, part of the House of Hohenzollern (more on them soon!). Caroline was orphaned at a young age and went to live with her guardians, Frederick I of Prussia and his wife, Sophia Charlotte. Sophia Charlotte was a sister of the future George I of Britain – who was at that time still only the Elector of Hanover – and renowned for her intelligence and her sophisticated, liberal court. Sophia Charlotte treated Caroline like a daughter, and her influence shaped the young girl.

Caroline grew up to be the “most agreeable Princess in Germany”. She was intelligent, witty, and stylish; fond of spirited discussion and friend of philosophers like Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebniz, Caroline was destined to achieve the reputation of being one of the “cleverest and most able queen consorts” in British history. I am not fond of comparing women – especially across such a long span of time which makes such comparisons especially meaningless – but this gives us some good context. Caroline was going to be an asset to whichever man she married (sadly, still the only real ‘career’ available to noble women of her time). First, though, she had to choose among her suitors. The Archduke Charles of Austria (a future Holy Roman Emperor) was dismissed after serious consideration because Caroline did not wish to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. So, she was still single and ready to mingle when a certain “Monsieur de Busch” arrived on the scene. It’s probably safe to say that no one was really fooled by this subterfuge of Prince George Augustus of Hanover, what with him being the nephew of Sophia Charlotte and all. His dad had told George Augustus to go see Caroline in person and decide if she would suit him as a wife; the goal being for George Augustus to avoid a loveless and disastrous marriage. And George Augustus’ dad would know all about that; he and his former wife (George Augustus’ mom, Sophia Dorothea of Celle) had had a massively unhappy marriage which had ended in life imprisonment for her. If you’re wondering whether this had a negative impact on the relationship between George Augustus and his dad … boy, did it ever.

Back to Caroline. George Augustus immediately liked what he saw of her. He was no intellectual himself, so her cerebral charms were probably lost on him, but he would have appreciated her other attractions. Caroline had a sweet smile, and “blossomed into a beauty when her face and mouth were in motion”. She was vivacious and elegant, “fat, funny and adorable” in Lucy Worsley’s words. George Augustus fell head over heels in love with Caroline and remained so for the rest of his life.

Caroline, too, liked what she saw well enough. It’s a bit harder to see why, on her part. George Augustus was not especially smart, funny, or good-looking. He was gruff and blustery, irritable and prone to violent fits of temper, and had a gaudy sense of style to boot.  He must have had redeeming qualities, because theirs was a love match, or at least what passed for one in royal circles of the time. They got married in 1705, and their first son, Frederick, was born a little more than a year later. When Caroline fell ill with smallpox that same year, George Augustus stayed by her side and caught the disease too.

But his ability to be a devoted husband had its limitations. George Augustus liked to go to war a lot, so he was away a fair bit while Caroline was busy raising their small children (between 1709 and 1713, they had three more, all girls). Worse, he felt compelled to get a mistress – Henrietta Howard, an English noblewoman on the run from her abusive husband. Poor Henrietta wasn’t especially happy about it, which is understandable considering that George Augustus seemed to view the whole arrangement as a chore: “a necessary appurtenance to his grandeur as a prince [rather] than an addition to his pleasures as a man.” Henrietta later became a Bedchamber Woman to Caroline, which was rather awkward for both of them. Caroline tolerated George Augustus’ many infidelities without a fuss, but she had a prickly relationship with Henrietta. George Augustus always loved his wife and didn’t seem to actually like his mistress very much, but the existence of said mistress still rankled Caroline. She loved George Augustus and, apparently, could never keep her hands off him – it was said she had “the most extravagant fondness for his person”. The fact that physical attraction for one’s husband was sufficiently odd to be remarked upon … tells you everything you need to know about marriage in the 18^th century.

In 1714, the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne, died and the Hanoverians were officially “in”. George Augustus’ dad ascended the throne as George I, and the whole family – minus the imprisoned Sophia Dorothea – moved to England, with mistresses in tow. It was not long before the simmering conflicts between father and son would come to a boil in a spat that became known as the “christening quarrel”.

At the root of the conflict was, of course, the reversionary problem. On top of the personal aspect, there was a political one as well. The Opposition party in Parliament tended to gravitate towards the heir as a figurehead, which fanned the flames. The Georges, father and son, were on a collision course. George I has been variously described as “an honest dull German gentleman” or “an honest blockhead”, which doesn’t sound particularly promising. His son was cut from similar cloth; moreover, both Georges had frightful tempers. As a result, what started as a stupid disagreement quickly escalated to the nuclear war level.

In 1717, Caroline gave birth to a son, George William. The parents had chosen a godfather, but the king intervened and made them pick someone else, Lord Newcastle. George Augustus and Caroline deeply resented the interference but had no choice except to acquiesce. At the christening, however, George Augustus’ temper boiled over, and he had a verbal spat with Lord Newcastle. Owing to George Augustus’ wobbly grasp of English, instead of saying “You Rascal, I will find you”, he told Lord Newscastle “You Rascal, I will fight you”. Them’s, ermm, fighting words – not a good look for the heir to the throne. When George I heard about it, he was apoplectic. He kicked George Augustus and Caroline out of the family palace at St. James and took away their kids. Yes, you read that correctly: the king took away their kids and forbade them from seeing them.

It was awful row – and huge public scandal – that would drag on for years and poison the relationship not only between the Georges, but also between Caroline and her children. Even after the “christening quarrel” was patched up in 1720, the children remained separated from their parents and this estrangement inevitably affected them all. George Augustus and Caroline went on to have more kids, with whom they were closer, but never managed to fully repair their relationship with the older ones, even after George I died and George Augustus became king.

As queen, Caroline was not always universally popular. She was so good at presenting a gracious, graceful front, that people suspected her of deceit and deviousness. And she was shrewd; together with Robert Walpole, the preeminent politician of the day, she “managed” George II very successfully – she kept him “subtly but firmly under her thumb” always making sure “that her opinion should appear as if it had been his own.” But Caroline was no shrewish wife. She soothed George’s temper and put up with his boorishness. She was also very kind to her servants, which counts for a lot in my books.

By the 1730s, Henrietta Howard had had enough of George II and his court. She wanted out. George II had also tired of her long before. The only person who wasn’t ready to let go was actually Caroline. She must have figured that Henrietta was the lesser of possible evils as far as mistresses went, and a good Bedchamber Woman to boot, and wanted her to stick around. So when Henrietta came to her with resignation in hand, Caroline tried to stop her, going so far as to ask George II to prevent Henrietta from leaving court. For once, George II was not amenable to persuasion. He reportedly shouted at Caroline “What the devil did you mean by trying to make an old, dull, deaf, peevish beast stay and plague me when I had so good an opportunity for getting rid of her?” In the end, Caroline had no choice but to back down and let Henrietta go. Henrietta’s story has a happy ending, thankfully. Her abusive husband – who was the main reason she had stayed at court for over 20 years in a role she didn’t enjoy for the sake of protection – died and left her a Countess. And she found a new, younger husband, MP George Berkeley. He wasn’t especially dashing, but he was kind and loving, which made for a nice change after the choleric George II. We love a good second act.

George II and Caroline, meanwhile, were moving into the next phase of family quarrels: fighting with their oldest son and heir, Frederick. Frederick had been left behind in Hanover when the rest of the family moved to England, but he was eventually summoned home to assume the role of Prince of Wales. As in the previous generation, a political and social circle quickly coalesced around Frederick and his new wife, Augusta, which put him in immediate conflict with his parents. Caroline couldn’t stand “Fretz”; one day, when she saw him walking outside by her windows, she told a friend “Look, there he goes – that wretch! – that villain! – I wish the ground would open this moment and sink the monster to the lowest hole in hell.” YIKES.

Caroline was nice to her daughter-in-law, Augusta, but she was still something of a mother-in-law from hell. She was obsessed with Frederick’s sex life and forever scooping up all the gossip she could about that (she couldn’t decide whether to believe the rumours that he was impotent or those that he was promiscuous). Caroline was especially concerned that Frederick and Augusta might try to fake a baby à la the supposed substitution of the Jacobite heir. [It was commonly, though erroneously, speculated that James II’s son by his second wife was not actually his, but rather a baby substituted at birth to ensure a male heir for the Catholic James, who didn’t want his Protestant daughters to succeed him on the throne]. These suspicions played a part in the next Georgian family scandal.

In 1737, Augusta and Frederick were expecting their first child. Caroline was determined to be present at the birth to avoid any baby substitution hanky panky. Frederick was equally determined to keep his parents at arms’ length. At first blush, your sympathies might be with Frederick … but in true Hanoverian fashion, he turned the dial all the way to batsh*t. Augusta and Frederick were at his parents’ palace on the night when Augusta’s waters broke. But instead of calling for the usual response – midwives, clean linen, bed pans, and witnesses (no, really, this was required for all royal births) – Frederick decided to bundle his wife into a carriage and drive back to their house. His ACTIVELY IN LABOUR 18-year old wife. To get the wailing Augusta to leave his parents’ palace, Frederick had to push her from behind, while two servants pulled her by the arms. Augusta cried and begged not to leave, but Frederick was determined to deny his parents the satisfaction of witnessing the birth of the baby.

The ride home was horrific; they had to cover 15 bumpy miles in a carriage, which took an hour and a half. AN HOUR AND A HALF. Unmedicated, in an era when mortality rates in childbirth were extremely high. Hard pass! Frederick and 3 ladies had to hold the screaming Augusta down during the entire hellish carriage ride. Frederick later complained this gave him a headache. Boo f*cking hoo. By the time they got to their own palace, nothing was ready, so everyone had to scramble to make the necessary preparations. Once born, the baby had to be wrapped in a napkin because nothing else was available. And all the witnesses, minus the king and queen (who were not told until much later), arrived too late. It was a whole mess. One verdict on the whole debacle was: “had [Frederick] no way of affronting his parents but by venturing to kill his wife and the heir of the crown?”

Predictably, George II and Caroline were furious. In echoes of an earlier generation, Frederick and his wife were banished from court, and George II refused to see them. Caroline, always the more publicity-minded of the two, adopted a seemingly conciliatory attitude in order to win the war of public opinion. She went to visit Augusta and the baby, but she wasn’t happy about it. Privately, she told people that “one does not care a farthing for them, the giving oneself all this trouble is une bonne grimace pour le publique [putting on a good show for the public.]” The Hanoverians always fought their family battles in the court of public opinion, and the public had plenty of opinions about the Hanoverians. Caroline was actually one of the more popular members of the family, especially by the 1730s. Having borne many children and patiently tolerated her husband’s infidelities, Caroline was elevated to an almost saintly position in the eyes of her subjects. It was very on-brand for her to have said, of George II’s infidelity, that she was “sorry for the scandal it gave others, but for herself she minded it no more than his going to the close stool [aka toilet].” Salty! Methinks the lady doth protest too much, although I guess she couldn’t do much else with Grumpy George by her side.

By November 1737, Caroline was gravely ill. The cause of her illness was gnarly. Consider this your trigger warning. Repeated pregnancies had placed great pressure on Caroline’s stomach, which resulted, during her last pregnancy, in an umbilical hernia or hole. Caroline did not tell anyone, nor did she permit anyone to see her naked, so her condition was left untreated and worsened over time. By 1737, a loop of her bowel had squeezed its way out of the hernia and became trapped, which caused severe digestive problems. This was all on top of severe gout which forced her to use a wheelchair. Eventually, the truth came to light; Caroline was furious at what she considered an invasion of her privacy but, worse than that, she was subjected to absolutely horrific “treatment”. Instead of pushing the bowel back into the stomach and sewing up the hole, which might have saved her life, the physicians proceeded to cut off the protruding bowel, bit by bit. Keep in mind, there were no real pain killers at the time, and Caroline couldn’t keep down whatever palliatives (alcohol, mainly) they could give her.

During her last illness, George II was once again a devoted husband, staying by her side and writing her passionate love letters. But that didn’t mean he was any less of a grumpy old man. He was still capable of making brusque remarks to Caroline, and adamantly insisted that their son Frederick be kept away. By some accounts, Caroline was on board with this, her antipathy for her oldest son unabated. Others suggest that Caroline secretly longed for a reconciliation with Frederick. Either way, it wasn’t meant to be.

Caroline’s last days were truly awful, but she is said to have borne the ordeal better than everyone around her. Even on her deathbed, she was philosophical about her husband’s foibles. She urged George II to remarry, but he refused, crying that he would only have mistresses from that point on. Caroline reputedly responded, with what I can only assume was an inward eyeroll: “Ah, mon Dieu, cela n’empeche pas!” [My God, that doesn’t prevent it] She kept her sense of humour to the very end.

Unlike the other Carolines we will be covering, Caroline of Ansbach did not stray too far from the role of dutiful wife which she was expected to fulfill as a queen consort. As far as the scandals of her life, she was mostly on the same page with her husband … and often public opinion too. Caroline knew the importance of keeping the public on your side, especially when scandal is afoot. It’s something our next Caroline was not willing or able to do … and suffered for it. And something our third and final Caroline used extremely well and to her advantage.

Selected Bibliography

Lucy Worsley, Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court

Stella Tillyard, A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings

Flora Fraser, The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline