The Age of Elegance (19 page)

events that seemed about to unite the dynasties of Britain and the Netherlands had also brought the Grand Duchess Catherine to England. As a Russian, she did not wish to see such a combination— a threat to her country's Continental paramountcy—formed inside the grander alliance of European thrones of which her brother was the genius. Nor as a woman did she wish to see the Regent happy or his daughter obedient. Making a dead set at Charlotte, she implanted in her mind a strong dislike for her uninspiring fiance and a fancy for one of the Prussian princes—fine creatures, brave as lions, it was said, and conveniently within the Russian orbit. In this she was aided by the wiles of the young Opposition lawyer, Henry Brougham—"wicked shifts," as his colleagues called him—who insinuated into the girl's head the notion that if she went to Holland, the Regent would procure a divorce, marry again and deprive her of the succession. "The effect upon the young 'un," wrote a Whig, "was almost magical." A few days later, provided by her father with a list of wedding guests which omitted her mother's name, she returned it with her own erased.
¹

Thus the arrival of the foreign Sovereigns had not only brought to a head the Regent's unhappy relationship with his wife, but had deflected his daughter from the marriage his Ministers had planned for her. Instead of ministering to his pride as the head of the first nation on earth, his principal guest, egged on by his intolerable sister, had consistently humiliated him. It was in vain that, with florid condescension and in ever more wonderful clothes, he took his allies to Ascot or went with them down the river to Woolwi
ch attended by sixty barges mann
ed by liveried musicians and watermen. The Czar, like his ancestor, Peter the Great, was greatly impressed by the wonders of England's shipyards and the resources of her national arsenal; they resembled, he declared, the preparations for the commencement of a war rather than the stores remaining at its end.
²
But he managed to convey that, while he was responsible for Russia's achievements, England's were in no way due to the Regent. Throughout his conversation he insinuated an unmistakable tone of contempt.

There was policy in this. For the Czar welcomed the opportunities for intrigue offered by British politics. He could rule, it seemed, by

¹
Brownlow, 45, 78, 107; Bury, I, 202, 207; II, 292-3, 315; Festing, 193; Grenville, I, 230
Paget Brothers,
263-5.

²
Croly,
Life of George IV,
II, 67.

dividing. The Regent was only a figurehead—the butt of the luxurious society over which he presided in his father's absence. The position of his Ministers, creatures of the hour, was constantly undermined by the factious opposition of other nobles and members of Parliament. For all her wealth England was only another Poland; with France out of the way, nothing could stay the predestined advance of Russia, with her clear, inspired leadership, vast numbers and heroic soldiers. It was not only an amateur Spartan's contempt for an epicurean that made the Czar scorn the Regent's society.

Indulging in the occupation, so dear to his country's policy, of fishing in troubled waters, he and his sister ostentatiously appeared at Opposition gatherings to which the Regent was not invited. In his role of liberal-minded philosopher, Alexander sought to convey the impression that he was not so much a prince as a gentleman among gentlemen. When a Whig Earl presented him with an ice on a salver, he insisted on putting the empty glass down himself It was the great year of Almack's—the assembly rooms where the Whig hostess, Lady Jersey, set the tone for the highest fashion. With this excitable, imperious and rather obtuse beauty from Ireland, the Czar pretended to be in love. On the day of her midsummer ball the Regent had arranged for his guests to be in Oxford. After the academic junketings—the Latin orations, the banquet in the Radcliffe at which the military had to be called in to quiet the enthusiastic students, the Encaenia with the Regent arrayed in silken cap and gown—the Czar took sudden leave in the middle of a dinner in Christ Church hall and, driving through the night, reached London at three in the morning, where Byron saw him in

"a starless blue coat and kersey— mere breeches whisk'd round with the Jersey, Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted With majesty's presence as those she'd invited."
¹

The climax of this contest of pinpricks between the two vainest men in Europe occurred on June 18th when the Monarchs dined with the Lord Mayor. Knowing that if he went to the Guildhall unaccompanied, he would be insulted by the mob, the Regent had arranged to drive with the Czar. But at the last moment the Grand

¹
Moore,
Byron,
255. See
Ann. Reg.
1814; Chron. 47-8; Ashton, I, 281-4; Farington, VII, 258; Haveiock, 288; Howitt, 11; Nicolson, 114; Lady Shelley, I, 63.

Duchess decided to come too. In vain it was pointed out that the arrangements had all been made and that women were excluded from civic feasts. Argument merely strengthened her resolution. All day frantic letters passed between the Pulteney and Carlton House. The Czar was adamant; unless the Grand Duchess drove with him by his side, he would not go to the Guildhall at all. As it was impossible for all three to occupy the same seat, and none could sit with dignity on the opposite one, there was nothing for the Regent to do but resign his state coach to the Czar and proceed in a separate one. His reception in the City streets was such as to make him vow he would never visit it again. Despite the two Prussian princes hastily requisitioned to sit opposite him, the Lord Mayor riding ahead with the Sword of State, the Yeomen of the Guard and the massed escort of cavalry, the Regent was greeted with hisses, groans and shouts of "Where's your wife? Love your wife!"

Nor did his humiliation end at the Guildhall. In the presence of his Ministers, the King of Prussia and the foreign princes, the head of the British State was forced to await the arrival of the Russians for a whole hour, the end of which was rendered the more agonising by the frantic cheering which greeted them in the streets outside. And as the royal procession at last entered the banqueting hall to the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old England," the Czar deliberately stopped to talk to Lord Grey and Lord Holland, two of the Regent's bitterest enemies. The enraged Prince had to wait behind him under the gaze of thousands. For the rest of the evening he preserved a haughty and dulling silence. Under the gold-fringed canopy of velvet over the thrones of England, Russia and Prussia the air was electric: a little island of ice in the midst of the crowded, chattering, perspiring hall. While the Lord Mayor stood majestic behind, while the traditional baron of beef, surmounted by the royal standard and attended by sergeant carvers, was borne with musical honours to the table, and toast followed toast, the Regent said not one word to the imperial barbarian at his side.

But the Russians had not finished with him. When after the toasts and "Hip! Hip! Hurrahs," at which the Grand Duchess laughed deliciously, the fiddlers and opera-singers in the gallery struck up the time-honoured songs appropriate to each sentiment—"Rule Britannia!" "Hail! Star of Brunswick," "To Arms, to Arms!"—-she began to make signals of distress. If the caterwauling went on, she declared,, she would be sick. She became so hysterical that out of common courtesy the Regent was forced to ask the music to stop. But this caused so much indignation in the body of the hall that, to placate his hosts, he had to appeal to the Calmuck beauty to allow the National Anthem to be sung. She was merciless; "as if," she replied with a toss of the head, "that was not music!" At this, however, a murmuring began and a note was passed to the Russian Ambassador: ""If your Duchess does not allow the music, we won't answer for the royal table." Faced by a national obstinacy as great as her own, the lady gave way: "Well, let them bawl, then!" And in the silence that ensued the Prime Minister was heard to mutter, "When folks don't know how to behave they ought to stay at home!"

On the way back to Carlton House the Regent's coach, tightly surrounded by guards, was followed by a groaning crowd. When he got home he learned that at the opera that night the whole house had applauded his wife. "God bless you," the crowd had called to her afterwards, "we'll make the Prince love you before we have done with him!" "Prinny," wrote one of his old cronies, "is exactly in the state one would wish; he lives only by protection of his visitors. He is worn out with fuss, fatigue and rage."
¹

During the closing days of the visit popular enthusiasm began to wane and the English to grow insular again. Those who came in contact with the Russians, like Dr. Johnson's old friend, Mrs. Piozzi, who let them her house at Streatham, found that, though they might have saved civilisation, they were not very civilised themselves. Nor did their ruler, for all his condescension and fine manners, escape criticism. His flirting and waltzing scarcely accorded with his character of Christian paladin; he was gallant enough to the young ladies, it was noted, but had notliing to say to their elders. A nearer -approach showed him to be a foolish, good-natured, dancing dandy: Byron's

"coxcomb Czar, The autocrat of waltzes and of war."

Even the Opposition leaders ceased to be responsive; Whig aristocrats, as Napoleon also had found, welcomed reforming dictators in

¹
Creevey Papers,
I, 196. See
Ann. Reg.
1814; Chron., 48-50; Ashton, I, 114-15, 287-8; Bury, I, 123, 205, 234; Colchester, II, 502-3; Dyott, I, 311; Farington, VII, 268; Festing, 193, 195; Jcrningham, II, 54; Nicolson, 114-15.

theory, but in practice were allergic to all rulers. They particularly resented Alexander's insistence, while putting off the monarch, on the royal privilege of monopolising the conversation.
¹

"I hope," wrote Jane Austen from Chawton on June 23rd, "Fanny has seen the Emperor, and then I may fairly wish them all away!" That day the foreign Sovereigns left London.
²
At Portsmouth they inspected the dockyards and witnessed a naval review from the deck of the royal yacht. Then, after a night at Petworth, they bade farewell to the Regent, and set out for Dover. To the last the Czar and his sister continued to play to the gallery. At Hastings they stopped their carriage on the outskirts of the town, shook hands with the astonished peasantry and distributed cakes among the children. George Cruikshank commemorated the incident in a cartoon called
Russian Condescension or the Blessings of Universal Peace.

A few of the visitors lingered in England a little longer. The Hetman Platoff, whose ugliness much endeared him to the English, was seen at an Essex country-house party in July joyously stamping his feet like a horse and nodding his head in a Cossack dance.
Blücher
, who was also there, danced mazurkas with the bright-eyed English ladies like a subaltern. He retained his wonderful popularity to the end, his mere appearance in a London street automatically emptying every shop in a matter of seconds. The courtyard of St. James's Palace where he lodged was filled all day with sightseers; with the greatest good humour the old warrior never failed, sometimes at five-minute intervals, to appear at the window. He seemed to like the English as much as they liked him; he once paid them the compliment of remarking what a fine capital theirs would be to sack. When he sailed from Dover, he stood watching the white cliffs, murmuring as he turned away, "That's a fine country!"
³

The rest of the victory summer passed like a dream. "I rejoiced," wrote De Quincey, "with the universal nation then rejoicing." The

¹
Lord Grey described him as a vain, silly fellow who thought himself clever but was a damned fool.
Creevey Papers,
I, 195-6. See Ashton, I, 275-6; Broughton, I, 153; Brownlow, 76; Lady Burghersh; Colchester, II, 503-41; Dudley, 230; Farington, VII, 261-2; Havelock, 272, 280-1; Jerningham, II, 54;
Lieven Letters,
10;
Paget Brothers,
262-3; Lady Shelley, I, 58, 60-3; Wynne,

2
Grand Duchess and the Czar left
£200
among the thirty servants at the Pulteney and
nothing at all for the State coachmen and cooks. A country baronet, it was felt, would have
done better." Broughton, I, 153.

³
Haydon,
1,
282. See Ashton,
1,
270,272-3,274-5,279-80; Broughton,
1,
113-14; De Quincey,
I, 66-7; Festing, 193-5; Moore,
Byron,
305; Lady Shelley, I, 58-60.

return to England of Wellington—a Duke now—was the signal for a new outburst of celebrations. At Dover he was seized by the crowd and borne shoulder-high to the Ship Inn; all the way to London, through the Kentish hay fields, where old men in white smocks stood bareheaded to see him pass, the cheering and feting cont
inued. "It was quite refreshing
' wrote Mary Mitford, who saw him driving in an open carriage without the slightest affectation of bowing, "after all
those parading foreign emperors
' He took the lionising calmly, as he had taken worse things, rode about London in a plain blue coat with a single groom, and made it clear that, while promiscuous pawing might do for an Emperor, it was too much for an English gentleman. In the Commons, after the Gover
nment had proposed to vote him £
300,000 to buy an estate, the leader of the Opposition tabled an amendme
nt increasing the grant to £
400,000. "When the will of Heaven and the
common destinies of our nature
' the Speaker told him as he sat, in Field Marshal's uniform, within the bar of the House, "shall have swept away the present generation, you will have left your great name
and example as an imperishable
monument, exciting others to like deeds of glory and serving at once to adorn, defend and perpetuate the existence of this country among the ruling nations of the earth."

While England commemorated its victories, it dismissed the forces that had won them. All June and July the troops from Bordeaux—except those dispatched across the Atlantic to fight the Americans—were returning in dark, crowded transports, the decks packed with hungry men asleep in blankets and the holds with wounded. When Ensign Bell reached his father's house in Ireland, his brethren waited for him at the end of the avenue, bonfires blazed on the hills, and, penniless younger son though he was, he danced for a week with every pretty girl in the county. The rank and file were less fortunate. They were recruited from the gutter, and to the gutter they returned. They had done what the nation needed and were wanted no more. They were given their arrears of pay—without interest—and disbanded so that taxes could be reduced. The seamen released from French prison camps were dismissed by the port authorities without a penny and left to beg their way home. At Chelsea thousands of idle soldiers, awaiting demobilisation, lined the streets and lounged before the doors of public-houses. "There," wrote Rifleman Harris, discharged
after seven years' campaigning
with a wound-pension of 6d. a day, "hobbled the maimed light-infantryman, the heavy dragoon, the hussar, the artilleryman, the fusilier
...
the Irishman shouting and brandishing his crutch, the Englishman reeling with drink, and the Scot with grave, melancholy visage sitting on the step of the public-house amongst the crowd." Others never came home at all; at Gibraltar, where several regiments were awaiting transport, yellow fever broke out, and, the army doctors being free to take fees from the rich Jews and Moors of the Rock, the men were left to die in the care of drunken orderlies.
¹

The summer's rejoicings—marred by a July day when the Princess Charlotte flounced out of Carlton House, hailed a hackney coach and took refuge at her mother's house—culminated in a jubilee celebration on August ist, the centenary of the Hanoverian accession. The Regent, having dispatched his daughter under close guard to the country, superintended the preparations himself, throwing open the royal parks to the populace. St. James's Park was hung with coloured lanterns, its lawns set for dancing and its canal spanned by a Chinese bridge, crowned with a seven-storeyed, gas-lit pagoda. In front of Buckingham House a platform was built for the ascent of a balloon, and a royal pavilion for the Regent and his guests. The Green Park had a sham castle a hundred and thirty feet high, before which the storm of Badajoz was to be staged, and Hyde Park had refreshment and gambling booths and a representation of the Battle of the Nile on the Serpentine, enacted by model three-deckers made out of ship's barges and fitted with miniature cannon.

Usually Parliament and the country opposed and, when they could not prevent, deplored the Regent's grander flights of extravagance; on this occasion he expected to have them with him. With his own hands, forgetting for a moment the vexation of being a husband and a father, he helped to design the dual-purpose Castle of Discord and Temple of Peace, with its symbolic illuminations of the devastations of War and the evils of Despotism and Tyranny, its mechanical fountains, imitation porphyry columns, rainbows, vestal virgins and transparencies depicting the Golden Age Restored. He also selected the fireworks—girandoles, jerbs, Roman candles and
pots de brin
—and insisted on the inclusion of a battery of Colonel

¹
Leslie, 256-7. See Harris, 189; Haydon, I, 286-7; Stewart, 92-3.

Congreve's rockets of which, unlike his country's naval and military commanders, he had always been an ardent patron.

Despite rain in the morning, the Jubilee was an immense success. Piccadilly, the Strand and Oxford Street were completely blocked for hours, and by the afternoon half a million people had assembled. For all the alarmist predictions in the Press, the crowds were orderly and good-humoured. Spreading across the grass of the royal parks, they settled down to enjoy their unwonted treat. Some picnicked under the trees, some climbed the branches, some vanished into the gaming booths, while others gaped at the mimic three-deckers and frigates on the Serpentine ocean. Sunshine had now succeeded rain, and it was a beautiful evening, the air fresh and delightful. Providence seemed to be smiling on the Regent and his people. The balloon soared away "in a most solemn and majestic manner," dropping coloured parachutes and landing, after hair-raising adventures, forty minutes later in the Mucking Marshes. The rockets rose in golden clusters, galloping about the heavens, wrote Charles Lamb, like young stars in the making and descending in sheets of fire on the deserted streets of Westminster. There were maroons and mines, redcoats with blackened faces creeping through the dark with glinting bayonets, and diabolical Frenchmen gesticulating on the battlements of the Castle of Discord. The illumination was increased by the burning of four of the model ships and the noise by the screeching of the Serpentine swans.

The Regent's
coup d'oeil
was timed for midnight. There was a deafening explosion and the canvas walls of the Green Park fortress —emblem of destructive war—suddenly lifted to reveal the revolving Temple of Peace, glittering with coloured lamps, while water flowed from the jaws of lions into golden basins, and a detachment of Foot Guards on the roof held aloft the Royal Standard and self
-
consciously gave three cheers. At almost the same moment the pagoda in the other park burst into flames and, after blazing for a quarter of an hour, fell into the lake, killing two spectators. The crowd, which supposed this to be part of the performance, continued to gape until the last flames and fireworks were expended. Then, having satisfied its love of wonders, the respectable part set off homewards through the darkness. The pressure in the Strand was so great that a Hanoverian commissary, on his way home from the Peninsula, was borne far past his
lodgings. The rest of the crowd
stayed behind in the drinking booths. It was still there, despite the Home Secretary's efforts to expel it, a week later.
¹

It was not only in London that England celebrated the peace. In little country towns from one end of the island to the other there were thanksgiving sermons and anthems, bands of music in the streets, processions with ribbons and banners, emblems in cars drawn by gaily-decked teams of horses, illuminations, crackers and bonfires. There was a general public holiday, and the rich subscribed to feast their poorer neighbours. At Lichfield more than three thousand people sat down to roast beef, plum-pudding and
ale; at Blandfor
d home-made transparencies were erected over every door with hovering doves, flags, trumpets and the figure of Plenty shedding corn and fruit from her cornucopia. The more rustic the scen
e, the more artless the commingli
ng of neighbours. At East Coker in Somerset the tents and tables were set at the bottom of a field, backed by a stream and row of elms, at the neighbouring village of Yetminster under the eaves of a farmhouse. "It was pleasant," wrote an onlooker, "to see the hilarity and good humour that prevailed between Master and Men, to say nothing of the hearty gourmandising of men, women and children. After all sorts of loyal toasts drunk in beer and cider, the company rose from the table for a dance on the green. Mr. Barrett took an old woman for his partner and, after giving her the last whirl, kissed her to the great delight of all present, one man exclaiming, 'God Almighty will bless you, Master, for that. If he don't, I'll be damned!' "
²
At Gainsborough in Lincolnshire little Thomas Cooper—the future Chartist leader—and his schoolfellows, dressed up as the Allied Sovereigns, serenaded the neighbouring squires and farmers, singing "Awake, my soul, and with the sun," and "Glory to Thee, my God, this night." "The beloved and venerated Sir Charles himself," he wrote, "stood and smiled to hear us, and called us very good boys as he gave us a real silver half-crown."

¹
"All that was countrified in the Parks," Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth, "is all but obliterated. The very colour of green is vanished, the whole surface dry crumbling sand . . . the stench of liquors, bad tobacco, dirty people and provisions conquer the air, and we arc stifled and suffocated.... The whole beauty of the place is gone—that lake-like look of the Serpentine —it has foolish ships upon it. But something whispers to have confidence in nature and its revival." Lamb, VI, 436. See
Ann. Reg.
1814; Ashton, I, 331-50; Chancellor, Plate 55; Brown-low, 113-14; Bury, I, 270; Co
lchester, II, 514; Schaumann, 413-1
5-

²
"Mr. B. forced himself to look grave and pointed to one of the flags which bore the motto, 'Fear God and honour the King.' " Ham, 191. See also
Ann. Reg.
1814; Chron., 215; Dyott, I, 310; Cooper, 23-4; Lucas, I, 35.