14 August — 202nd anniversary of the government trying to sneak the dead Caroline of Brunswick out of the country without attracting too much attention, resulting in a riot in Hyde Park, two deaths, and the beginnings of universal suffrage.
It was less than a month since her husband George IV had had her turned away from his coronation — but then, they had never really been love’s young dream. George had secretly married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic, and when he met Caroline, “it was loathing at first sight”, according to Queen Caroline and Sir William Gell: A Study in Royal Patronage and Classical Scholarship by Jason Thompson:
He was so overcome that he had to leave the room, calling for a glass of brandy as he went. Caroline, for her part, was scarcely more impressed. “Mon dieu!” she exclaimed. “Is the Prince always like that? I find him very fat, and nothing like as handsome as his portrait.” George continued his petulant behavior until the wedding day, 8 April, clearly hoping for some way out. He was so intoxicated during the ceremony that his friends had to hold him upright.
George later told Lord Malmesbury they “had sex three times altogether, twice on their wedding night and once the next night” and complained that “her manners were not those of a novice”. How gallant.
(For her part, Caroline said: “Judge what it was to have a drunken husband on one’s wedding day, and one who passed the greatest part of his bridal night under the grate, where he fell, and where I left him”. But I digress.)
The marriage was so unsuccessful that, eventually, Caroline was persuaded to leave the country in return for an allowance of £35,000 a year — and promptly took up with one Bartolomeo Pergami, 16 years her junior. According to Jane Robins, in her book Rebel Queen:
Perhaps it was Pergami’s Darcyesque qualities which prompted Jane Austen to write: “Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a woman and because I hate her Husband” — a view shared by much of the population.
George had only agreed to marry her so Parliament would pay his gambling debts, took against her at first sight, and gave her Lady Jersey, one of his many mistresses, to be her lady-in-waiting. He also failed to curb his lifestyle even slightly. He indulged all his appetites to such an extent that cartoons of him looking vast and unkempt appeared…
…others which mocked him for his many, many mistresses..
…and poems such as The Triumph of The Whale…
…which in turn inspired another cartoon:
He tried to get the Pains and Penalties Bill through Parliament in 1820 to get him a divorce on the grounds of Caroline’s adultery, but could only get it through the Lords — she was so popular, the Commons wouldn’t have it.
(Obviously, the fact that George went around London groin first was not an issue, only the fact that Caroline might finally have found happiness. As ever: thank heavens we live now in happier, more enlightened times.)
George was so hated that the daughter of a duke and a princess, living on the equivalent of about £2.3m a year, became a symbol of radical resistance. As historian Anna Clark puts it, different parts of the population liked her for their own reasons
Caroline was more likely to be portrayed in cartoons like this, which describes her as “Britain’s best Hope!! England’s Sheet-Anchor!!!”
So when she died, Jane Robins says, the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, wanted to avoid popular demonstrations of support, and unrest
They thought about taking her by boat, but seamen were among Caroline’s strongest supporters, and the Admiralty thought they’d block the river with their boats, so they settled for a secret route through London, avoiding the City. Unfortunately, people already knew where her body was, so when the funeral procession set off at 7.30am, with “a squadron of Oxford Blues” to quell any trouble, a crowd had already gathered. And a plumed hearse and 16 coaches might have attracted attention anyway.
Also, if you want to get ahead of a mob — literally and metaphorically — you need to move and think quickly, and funeral processions are not traditionally taken at a gallop. When they got to Kensington, the road was already blocked. Some were even digging it up.
Two years after the Peterloo Massacre, the government hit on the brilliant idea of summoning more soldiers to calm things down.
The hated Life Guards were summoned, arriving to yells of ‘No butchers! Kill the buggers!’ The Home Office ordered that the attempt to proceed up Kensington Church Street should be abandoned, and the cortege should instead try to cut through Hyde Park, maintaining the ambition to go north and avoid the City. But, at Hyde Park, the crowds had shut the gates — and when the Life Guards tried to open them they were pelted with stones and mud. The cortege moved on to Hyde Park Corner to try to get into the park there, but the way was blocked with market carts; so an attempt was made to proceed up Park Lane — but this too was barricaded and, by now, there was open fighting between the people and the Life Guards. Eventually the cortege forced its way into the park, whereupon the people ran across the grass to block the way out at Cumberland Gate, which gave way to the Edgware Road and the planned northern route.
In torrential rain, the Life Guards tried to force their way through despite an additional “heavy downpour of bricks and stones”, so they lashed out with sabres and fired pistols.
When they finally got through, they were met with more barricades and more fights, and eventually had to divert through the City, its streets lined with mourners. They got out of London at 5pm, and eventually Caroline got to Braunschweig (Brunswick) Cathedral.
Not, mind you, without some shenanigans in Colchester, where supporters unsuccessfully tried to get a plaque on her coffin inscribed — in accordance with her will — with a reference to her as the “Injured Queen of England”.
Ultimately, Jane Robins says, Caroline “set Britain on the road to political reform”. “There had been no revolution; not even a change of government”, but the popular reaction to how she was treated
Ultimately, she paved the way for the Representation of the People (aka ‘Great Reform’) Act of 1832, and eventually, we all got the vote.
(Yes, we do sometimes make fucking terrible collective decisions, but it’s better than the alternatives.)
