For my own part, I fancy Caroline was innocent of any infidelity to her
unhappy husband. But that is neither here nor there. Her behaviour was
certainly not above suspicion. It fully justified George in trying to
establish a case for her divorce. When, at length, she went abroad, her
vagaries were such that the whole of her English suite left her, and we
hear of her travelling about the Holy Land attended by another family,
named Bergami. When her husband succeeded to the throne, and her name
was struck out of the liturgy, she despatched expostulations in absurd
English to Lord Liverpool. Receiving no answer, she decided to return
and claim her right to be crowned Queen of England. Whatever the unhappy
lady did, she always was ridiculous. One cannot but smile as one reads
of her posting along the French roads in a yellow travelling-chariot
drawn by cart-horses, with a retinue that included an alderman, a
reclaimed lady-in-waiting, an Italian count, the eldest son of the
alderman, and 'a fine little female child, about three years old, whom
Her Majesty, in conformity with her benevolent practices on former
occasions, had adopted.' The breakdown of her impeachment, and her
acceptance of an income formed a fitting anti-climax to the terrible
absurdities of her position. She died from the effects of a chill caught
when she was trying vainly to force a way to her husband's coronation.
Unhappy woman! Our sympathy for her is not misgiven. Fate wrote her a
most tremendous tragedy, and she played it in tights. Let us pity her,
but not forget to pity her husband, the King, also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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