By George! Will She Do?

As Mr. Al said in last week’s installment of By George!, Princess Caroline was not at all suitable for the role of wife to Prince George, yet she quickly became the front runner. Wonder how?

If Princess Caroline, of all the available German Princesses, was the least suitable, how did it come to be that she won the “Marry The Prince of Wales Derby?” Consider this; The Prince was easily influenced by those close to him. The closer and more determined the individual, the greater the influence. In this case, I’m speaking of Lady Jersey.

She knew she could never be Princess of Wales. She also knew she would be, so to speak, out of a job if the Prince married, and he had to get married, a woman who had enough power to either force her away or balance out her own influence and make her role in the Prince’s life redundant. If the woman the Prince married exerted the same amount of control as Lady Jersey, the Prince would favor his new wife because society would encourage him to do so and, very important with the Prince, she was new and different.

No… If Lady Jersey hoped to remain Top Dog the Prince’s new wife had to occupy an inferior position. This was a problem whose solution was fraught with peril as far as Lady Jersey was concerned. And, indeed, it might have proven well neigh impossible to solve but for two factors. These factors, by themselves, would not have solved her problem. But together, they were just what the Lady ordered.

The first factor was, the Prince didn’t give a tinkers cuss who he married.  But that wouldn’t do Lady Jersey any good if he inadvertently married a strong woman. Strong being a relative term if you compare her to the Prince. The second factor was…there was a Princess available who, in Lady Jersey’s view, was so crude, slutty, stinky and stupid that the Prince wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her once he got to know her.

But she had to act fast before the Prince heard the bad news from other sources and put the kibosh on her plans. Lady Jersey pulled out all the stops to get the Marry Princess Caroline train rolling. She began by telling the Prince what a hot ticket the Princess was. A laff-a-minute, blond haired and blue eyed, big hooters, a veritable baby factory for producing heirs to the throne.

The Prince would be one lucky guy if he married her. She didn’t mention that it was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t produced a lot of babies for a lot of different guys up to that point. Lord Malmesbury was chosen as the fellow to travel to Brunswick with the formal proposal. The Duke and Duchess were more than happy to welcome His Lordship. They accepted the proposal with alacrity.

His Lordships first meeting with the Princess went well. She was “gay and cheerful and loved laughing.” Her teeth, alas, were only “tolerable” and appeared to be going bad. But she had “fine eyes and good hands” and was “very full chested.” Oh boy! There was a downside, the Duke warned His Lordship. Caroline was a nice girl, at heart, but it seemed that her mom was a less than sterling example to her. He didn’t wish to speak ill of his wife, who was the King’s sister after all, but she rather allowed Caroline to develop some…um…bad habits.

Without going into grisly detail, the Duke warned Lord Malmesbury to watch his daughter like a hawk. German ways were not English ways. Some of his daughters…habits… might be considered offensive to English sensibilities. She was entirely too fond of speaking her mind, for example. She was also “very impressionable and had no tact.” The Duke admonished His Lordship to be “very strict” with her. It was the only way to keep her in line. He had, in fact, made a list of everything she should NOT do in England. He gave the list to his daughter and told her to memorize it.

If this unsettled His Lordship, he was willing to chalk it up to the Dukes concern for his daughter. However, the day after this conference one of the Dukes mistresses took His Lordship aside and confirmed all that he had heard. Caroline was basically a good girl, really she was, but the key to controlling her was “to be extremely strict with her, govern her by fear.” That’s how her dad did it, and look how she turned out! His Lordship was not reassured.