Caroline and Charlotte by Alison Plowden

Author:Alison Plowden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752467436
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Charlotte was still anxiously awaiting the result of the Privy Council’s deliberations. ‘Many days passed,’ wrote Miss Knight, ‘and no visit from the Prince. He sent one or two messages to excuse himself, and we heard that everyone talked of this unhappy affair.’ They also heard that those two birds of ill omen, Sir John and Lady Douglas, had been rehabilitated and were ‘constantly with the inhabitants of Carlton House’ – a piece of information scarcely calculated to reassure the inhabitants of Warwick House. At last, on 1 March, the Duchess of Leeds returned from a summons to Carlton House with the news that ‘the Princess’s affair had finished dreadfully’. A copy of the Council’s report was delivered that evening, addressed to the Duchess, but Her Grace, with unexpected delicacy, handed the document over to Charlotte unopened. ‘Her Royal Highness’, says Miss Knight, ‘ran over the paper, and then said, “I have no objection to anyone hearing this”.’ To her great surprise and relief Charlotte had found the dreaded report to be nothing more than ‘a sort of answer’ to Caroline’s letter in the Morning Chronicle, ‘but so vague and incomprehensible and undefined … as hardly to be called an answer’. The Privy Councillors, in short, had merely confirmed the verdict of the 1806 inquiry and consequently agreed with the Regent that Charlotte should only be permitted to see her mother under supervision and subject to the restrictions he imposed. ‘After all this farce it leaves you just where you were before,’ was Charlotte’s exasperated comment.

In the world outside the walls of the Carlton House complex the news of the Princess of Wales’s second vindication was greeted with uninhibited delight. Loyal addresses and letters of congratulations on ‘having escaped a conspiracy against her life and honour’ poured into Kensington Palace from all sides, and Caroline pressed home her advantage by writing a letter to the Speaker of the Commons which she requested should be read to the House without delay. The Princess of Wales had, she said, seen a report made to the Prince Regent by the Privy Council on certain aspects of her character and conduct. This report was of such a nature that her Royal Highness felt persuaded no one could read it without considering it as ‘conveying aspersions’ upon her; but it was so vaguely worded as to make it impossible to discover precisely what it meant ‘or even what she had been charged with’. She had not been permitted to know what evidence the Privy Council had proceeded upon, still less to be heard in her own defence. Until the result of the inquiry had been communicated to her, her only source of information had been ‘common rumour’. She thefore felt compelled to throw herself upon ‘the wisdom and justice of Parliament’ and make it known that she feared no scrutiny however strict, provided only that it was carried out by impartial judges. Indeed, she would positively welcome a full, fair, and open investigation of her whole conduct during the period of her residence in England.

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