A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Caroline Amelia Elizabeth
CAROLINE AMELIA ELIZABETH,
Wife of George the Fourth of England, was the daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, and was born May 17th., 1768. She married the Prince) of Wales on the 8th. of April, 1795, and her daughter, the Princess Charlotte, was born on the 7th. of January, 1796. Dissensions soon arose between her and her husband, and in the following May they were separated, after which she resided at Blackheath. In 1806, being accused of some irregularities of conduct, the king instituted an inquiry into the matter by a ministerial committee. They examined a great number of witnesses, and acquitted the princess of the charge, declaring at the same time, that she was guilty of some imprudences, which had given rise to unfounded suspicions. The king confirmed this declaration of her innocence, and paid her a visit of ceremony. She afterwards received equal marks of esteem from the princes, her brothers-in-law. The Duke of Cumberland attended the princess to court and to the opera. The reports above-mentioned were caused by the adherents of the Prince of Wales, and the court of the reigning queen, who was very unfavourably disposed towards her daughter-in-law. On this occasion, as on many others, the nation manifested the most enthusiastic attachment to the princess. In 1813, the public contest was renewed between the two parties; the Princess of Wales complaining, as a mother, of the difficulties opposed to her seeing her daughter. The Prince of Wales, then regent, disregarded these complaints. Upon this, in July, 1814, the princess obtained permission to go to Brunswick, and, afterwards, to make the tour of Italy and Greece. She now began her celebrated journey through Germany, Italy, Greece, the Archipelago, and Syria, to Jerusalem, in which the Italian Beigami was her confidant and attendant. Many infamous reports were afterwards circulated, relating to the connexion between the princess and Bergami. On her journey, she received grateful acknowledgments for her liberality, her kindness, and her generous efforts for the relief of the distressed. She afterwards resided chiefly in Italy, at a country-seat on lake Como,
When the Prince of Wales ascended the British throne, January 29th., 1820, Lord Hutchinson offered her an income of £50,000 sterling, the name of Queen of England, and every title appertaining to that dignity, on the condition that she would never return to England. She refused the proposal, and asserted her claims more firmly than ever to the rights of a British Queen, complained of the ill-treatment she had received, and exposed the conspiracies against her, which had been continued by a secret agent, the Baron de Ompteda of Milan. Attempts at a reconciliation produced no favourable result. She at length adopted the bold step of a return to England, where she was neither expected nor wished for by the ministry, and, amidst the loudest expressions of the public joy, arrived from Calais, June 6th., and, the next day, entered London in triumph. The minister. Lord Liverpool, now accused the queen, before the parliament, for the purpose of exposing her to universal contempt as an adulteress. Whatever the investigation of the parliament may have brought to light, the public voice was louder than ever in favour of the queen; and, after a protracted investigation, the bill of pains and penalties was passed to a third reading, only by a majority of one hundred and twenty-three to ninety-five; and the ministers deemed it prudent to delay proceeding with the bill for six months, which was equivalent to withdrawing it. Thus ended this revolting process, which was, throughout, a flagrant outrage on public decency. In this trial, Mr. Brougham acted as the queen's attorney-general, Mr. Denman as her solicitor, and Drs. Lushington, Williams, and Wilde, as her counsel.
Though banished from the court of the king, her husband, the queen still lived at Brandenburg House, in a manner suitable to her rank, under the protection of the nation. In July, 1821, at the coronation of George the Fourth, she first requested to be crowned, then to be present at the ceremony. But by an order of the privy-council, both requests were denied, and, notwithstanding the assistance of the opposition, she suffered the personal humiliation of being repeatedly refused admission into Westminster Abbey. She then published, in the public papers, her protest against the order of the privy-council. Soon after her husband's departure to Ireland, July 30th., in consequence of the violent agitation of her mind, she was suddenly taken sick in Drury-lane theatre. An inflammation of the bowels succeeded, and she died August 7th., 1821. The corpse, according to her last will, was removed to Brunswick, where it rests among the remains of her ancestors. Her tombstone has a very short inscription, in which she is called the unhappy Queen of England. The removing and entombing of her mortal remains gave rise to many disturbances, first in London, and afterwards in Brunswick. These were founded more on opposition to the arbitrary measures of the ministry, that in respect for the memory of the queen. Two causes operated much in favour of the queen—the unpopularity of the ministry, and the general feeling that the king was perhaps the last man in the whole kingdom who had a right to complain of the incontinencies of his wife, which many, even of her friends, undoubtedly believed.