B E 7T1 31fl 
 
 DA 
 538 
 A22 
 AA5 
 1820 
 
 mm 
 
I 
 
 
THE 
 
 QUEEN'S LETTEil 
 
 TO 
 
 THE KING, 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR WILLIAM HONE, 
 
 LUDGATE-HILL. 
 
 1820. 
 Sixpence, 
 
J. M'Crcerv, Tooks-Court, 
 Ciianf«ry-LAiip, Loudon. 
 
 m. 
 
THE 
 
 
 .4-y < 
 
 qUEEN'S LETTER, ^-^"^ 
 
 4c. 
 
 ,Mi4''A 
 
 y 
 
 Sir, 
 
 After the unparalleled and unprovoked perse- 
 cution which, during a series of years, has been 
 carried on against me under the name and au- 
 thority of your Majesty— and which persecution, 
 instead of being mollified by time, time has ren- 
 dered only more and more malignant and unre- 
 lenting — it is not without a great sacrifice of 
 private feeling that I now, even in the way of 
 remonstrance, bring myself to address this letter 
 to your Majesty, But, bearing in mind that 
 royalty rests on the basis of public good; that 
 to this paramount consideration all others ought 
 to submit ; and aware of the consequences that 
 may result from the present unconstitutional, 
 illegal, and hitherto unheard-of proceedings; — 
 with a mind thus impressed; I cannot refrain 
 from laying my grievous wrongs once more be- 
 fore your Majesty, in the hope that the justice 
 which your Majesty may, by evil-minded coun- 
 gellors, be still disposed to refuse to the claims of 
 
 052 
 
a dutiful, faithful, and injured wife, you may be 
 induced to yield to considerations connected with 
 the honour and dignity of your crown, the sta- 
 bility of your throne, the tranquillity of your 
 dominions, the happiness and safety of your just 
 and loyal people, whose generous hearts revolt 
 at oppression and cruelty, and especially when 
 perpetrated by a perversion and a mockery of 
 the laws. 
 
 A sense of what is due to my character and 
 sex forbids me to refer minutely to the real causes 
 of our domestic separation, or to the numerous 
 unmerited insults offered me previously to that 
 period ; but, leaving to your Majesty to recon- 
 cile with the marriage vow the act of driving, by 
 such means, a wife from beneath your roof, witlr 
 an infant in her arms, your Majesty will permit 
 me to remind you, that that act was entirely 
 your own ; that the separation, so far from being 
 sought for by me, was a sentence pronounced 
 upon me, without any cause assigned, other than 
 that of your own inclinations, which, as your 
 Majesty was pleased to allege, were not under 
 your control. 
 
 Not to have felt, with regard to myself, cha- 
 grin at this decision of your Majesty, would have 
 argued great insensibility to the obligations of 
 decorum ; not to have dropped a tear in the face 
 of that beloved child, whose future sorrows were 
 then but too easy to foresee, would have marked 
 
me as unworthy of the name of mother; but, 
 not to have submitted to it without repining, 
 would have indicated a consciousness of demerit, 
 or a want of those feelings which belong to af- 
 fronted and insulted female honour. 
 
 The "tranquil and comfortable society" ten- 
 dered to me by your Majesty, formed, in my 
 mind, but a poor compensation for the grief oc- 
 casioned by considering the wound given to pub- 
 Jic morals in the fatal example produced by the 
 indulgence of your Majesty's inclinations; more 
 especially when I contemplated the disappoint- 
 ment of the nation, who had so munificently 
 provided for our union, who had fondly cherished 
 such pleasing hopes of happiness arising from 
 that union, and who had hailed it with such af- 
 fectionate and rapturous joy. 
 
 But, alas I even tranquillity and comfort were 
 too much for me to enjoy. From the very 
 threshold of your Majesty's mansion the mother 
 of your child was pursued by spies, conspirators, 
 and traitors, employed, encouraged, and re- 
 warded to lay snares for the feet, and to plot 
 against the reputation and life of her whom your 
 Majesty had so recently and so solemnly vowed 
 to honour, to love, and to cherish. 
 
 In withdrawing from the embraces of my pa- 
 rents, in giving my hand to the son of George 
 the Third and the heir-apparent to the British 
 throne, nothing less than a voice from Heaven 
 
would have made me fear injustice or wrong of 
 any kind. What, then, was my astonishment at 
 finding that treasons against me had been carried 
 on and matured, perjuries against me had been 
 methodized and embodied, a secret tribunal had 
 been held, a trial of my actions had taken place, 
 and a decision had been made upon those actions, 
 without my having been informed of the nature 
 of the charge, or of the names of the witnesses ? 
 and what words can express the feelings excited 
 by the fact, that this proceeding was founded on 
 a request made, and on evidence furnished, by 
 order of the father of my child, and my natural 
 as well as legal guardian and protector ? 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the unprecedented 
 conduct of that tribunal— -conduct which has 
 since undergone, even in Parliament, severe and 
 unanswered animadversions, and which has been 
 also censured in minutes of the Privy Council — 
 notwithstanding the secrecy of the proceedings 
 of this tribunal — notwithstanding the strong 
 temptation to the giving of false evidence against 
 me before it — notwithstanding that there was no 
 opportunity afforded me of rebutting that evidence 
 — notwithstanding all these circumstances,- so 
 decidedly favourable to my enemies — even this 
 secret tribunal acquitted me of all crime, and 
 thereby pronounced my principal accusers to 
 have been guilty of the grossest perjury. But it 
 was now (after the trial was over) discovered. 
 
that the nature of the tribunal was such as to 
 render false swearing before it not legally cri- 
 minal! And thus, at the suggestion and request 
 of your Majesty, had been created, to take cog- 
 nizance of and try my conduct, a tribunal com- 
 petent to administer oaths, competent to exa- 
 mine witnesses on oath, competent to try, com- 
 petent to acquit or condemn, and competent, 
 moreover, to screen those who had sworn falsely 
 against me from suffering the pains and penal- 
 ties which the law awards to wilful and corrupt 
 perjury. Great as my indignation naturally 
 must have been at this shameful evasion of law 
 and justice, that indignation was lost in pity for 
 him who could lower his princely plumes to the 
 dust by giving his countenance and favour to 
 the most conspicuous of those abandoned and 
 notorious perjurers. 
 
 Still there was one whose upright mind nothing 
 could warp, in whose breast injustice never found 
 a place, whose hand was always ready to raise 
 the unfortunate, and to rescue the oppressed. 
 While that good and gracious father and Sove- 
 reign remained in the exercise of his Royal func- 
 tions, his unoffending daughter-in-law had no- 
 thing to fear. As long as the protecting hand of 
 your late ewer-beloved and ever-lamented father 
 was held over me, I was safe. But the melan- 
 choly event which deprived the nation of the 
 active exertions of its virtuous King, bereft me 
 
of friend and protector, and of all hope of future 
 tranquillity and safety. To calumniate your 
 innocent wife was now the shortest road to Royal 
 favour ; and to betray her was to lay the sure 
 foundation of boundless riches and titles of ho- 
 nour. Before claims like these, talent, virtue, 
 long services, your own personal friendships, 
 your Royal engagements, promises, and pledges, 
 written as well as verbal, melted into air. Your 
 Cabinet was founded on this basis. You took to 
 your councils men, of whose persons, as well as 
 whose principles, you had invariably expressed 
 the strongest dislike. The interest of the nation, 
 and even your own feelings, in all other re- 
 spects, were sacrificed to the gratification of 
 your desire to aggravate my sufferings, and en- 
 sure my humiliation. You took to your coun- 
 cils and your bosom men whom you hated, 
 whose abandonment of, and whose readiness to 
 sacrifice me were their only merits, and whose 
 power has been exercised in a manner, and has 
 been attended with consequences, worthy of its 
 origin. From this unprincipled and unnatural 
 union have sprung the manifold evils which this 
 nation has now to endure, and which present a 
 mass of misery and of degradation, accompanied 
 with acts of tyranny and cruelty, rather than 
 have seen which inflicted on bis industrious, 
 faithful, and brave people, your Royal Father 
 would have perished at tlie head of that people. 
 
9 
 
 When to calumniate, revile, and betray me, 
 became the sure path to honour and riches, it 
 would have been strange indeed, if calumniators, 
 revilers, and traitors, had not abounded. Your 
 Court became much less a scene of polished 
 manners and refined intercourse than of low in- 
 trigue and scurrility. Spies, Bacchanalian tale- 
 bearers, and foul conspirators, swarmed in those 
 places which had before been the resort of 
 sobriety, virtue, and honour. To enumerate all 
 the various privations and mortifications which I 
 had to endure— all the insults that were wan- 
 tonly heaped upon me, from the day of your 
 elevation to the Regency to that of my depar- 
 ture for the Continent — would be to describe 
 every species of personal offence that can be 
 offered to, and every pain short of bodily vio- 
 lence that can be inflicted on any human being. 
 Bereft of parent, brother, and father-in-law, and 
 my husband for my deadliest foe; seeing those 
 who have promised me support, bought by re- 
 wards to be amongst my enemies; restrained 
 from accusing my foes in the face of the world, 
 out of regard for the character of the father of 
 my child, and from a desire to prevent their hap^ 
 piness from being disturbed ; shunned from mo- 
 tives of selfishness by those who were my natural 
 associates ; living in obscurity, while I ought to 
 have been the centre of all that was splendid ; 
 thus humbled, 1 had one consolation left— the 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 love of my dear and only child. To permit me 
 to enjoy this was too great an indulgence. To 
 see my daughter; to fold her in my arms; to 
 mingle my tears with hers ; to receive her cheer- 
 ing caresses, and to hear from her lips assurances 
 of never-ceasing love; — thus to be comforted, 
 consoled, upheld, and blessed, was too much to 
 be allowed me. Even on the slave-mart the 
 cries of " Oh ! my mother, my mother I Oh I 
 my child, my child !" have prevented a separa- 
 tion of the victims of avarice. But your advisers, 
 more inhuman than the slave-dealers, remorse- 
 lessly tore the mother from the child. 
 
 Thus bereft of the society of my child, or re- 
 duced to the necessity of embittering her life by 
 struggles to preserve that society, I resolved on 
 a temporary absence, in the hope that time might 
 restore me to her in happier days. Those days, 
 alas ! were never to come. To mothers — and 
 those mothers who have been suddenly bereft of 
 the best and most affectionate and only daugh- 
 ters — it belongs to estimate my sufferings and 
 my wrongs. Such mothers will judge of my 
 affliction upon hearing of the death of my child, 
 and upon my calling to recollection the last look, 
 the last words, and all the affecting circumstances 
 of our separation. Such mothers will see the 
 depth of my sorrows. Every being with a heart 
 of humanity in its bosom will drop a tear iii 
 sympathy with me. And will not the world. 
 
11 
 
 then, learn with indignation, that this event, 
 calculated to soften the hardest heart, was the 
 signal for new conspiracies, and indefatigable 
 efforts for the destruction of this afflicted mother ? 
 Your Majesty had torn my child from me; 
 you had deprived me of the power of being at 
 hand to succour her I you had taken from me the 
 possibility of hearing of her last prayers for her 
 mother ; you saw me bereft, forlorn, and broken- 
 hearted ; and this was the moment you chose 
 for redoubling your persecutions. 
 
 Let the world pass its judgment on the con- 
 stituting of a commission, in a foreign country, 
 consisting of inquisitors, spies, and informers, to 
 discover, collect, and arrangemattersof accusation 
 against your wife, without any complaint having 
 been communicated to her : let the world judge of 
 the employment of ambassadors in such a busi- 
 ness, and of the enlisting of foreign courts in the 
 enterprize : but on the measures which have 
 been adopted to give final effect to these preli- 
 minary proceedings, it is for me to speak; it is 
 for me to remonstrate with your Majesty -, it is 
 for me to protest ; it is for me to apprize you of 
 my determination. 
 
 I have always demanded a. fair trial. This is 
 what I now demand, and this is refused me. 
 Instead of a fair trial, I am to be subjected to a 
 sentence by the Parliament, passed in the shape 
 
121 
 
 of a law. Against this I protest, and upon the 
 following grounds : — 
 
 The injustice of refusing me a clear and dis- 
 tinct charge, of refusing me the names of the 
 witnesses, of refusing me the names of the places 
 where the alleged acts have been committed; 
 these are sufficiently flagrant and revolting ; but 
 it is against the constitution of the Court itself 
 that I particularly object, and that I most so- 
 lemnly protest. 
 
 Whatever may be the precedents as to Bills of 
 Pains and Penalties, none of them, except those 
 relating to the Queen of Henry the Eighth, can 
 apply here ; for here your Majesty is the plain- 
 tiff. Here it is intended by the Bill to do you 
 what you deem good^ and to do me great harm. 
 You are, therefore, a party, and the only com- 
 plaining party. 
 
 You have made your complaint to the House 
 of Lords. You have conveyed to this House 
 written documents sealed up. A secret com- 
 mittee of the House have examined these docu- 
 ments. They have reported that there are 
 grounds of proceeding; and then the House, 
 merely upon that report, have brought forward 
 a Bill containing the most outrageous slanders 
 on me, and sentencing tne to divorce and degra- 
 dation. 
 
 The injustice of putting forth this Bill to the 
 
13 
 
 world for six weeks before it is even proposed to 
 afford me an opportunity of contradicting its 
 allegations is too manifest not to have shocked 
 the nation -, and, indeed, the proceedings even 
 thus far are such as to convince every one that 
 no justice is intended me. But if none of these 
 proceedings, if none of these clear indications of 
 a determination to do me wrong had taken place, 
 I should see, in the constitution of the House of 
 Lords itself, a certainty that I could expect no 
 justice at its hands. 
 
 Your Majesty's Ministers have advised this 
 prosecution 3 they are responsible for the advice 
 they give ; they are liable to punishment if they 
 fail to make good their charges; and not only are 
 they part of my judges, but it is they who have 
 brought in the Bill ; and it is too notorious that 
 they \\?iveakvays a majority in the House; so that, 
 without any other, here is ample proof that the 
 House will decide in favour of the Bill, and, of 
 course, against me. 
 
 But further, there are reasons for your Minis- 
 ters having a majority in this case, and which 
 reasons do not apply to common cases. Your 
 Majesty is the plaintiff : to you it belongs to ap- 
 point and to elevate Peers. Many of the present 
 Peers have been raised to that dignity by yourself, 
 and almost the whole can be, at your will and 
 pleasure, further elevated. The far greater part 
 of the Peers hold, by themselves and their fami- 
 
14 
 
 lies, offices, pensions, and other emoluments, 
 solely at the will and pleasure of your Majesty, 
 and these, of course, your Majesty can take 
 away whenever you please. There are more than 
 four-fifths of the Peers in this situation, and there 
 are many of them who might thus be deprived of 
 the far better part of their incomes. 
 
 If, contrary to all expectation, there should 
 be found, in some peers, likely to amount to a 
 majority, a disposition to reject the Bill, some of 
 these Peers may be ordered away to their ships, 
 regiments, governments, and other duties 3 and, 
 which is an equally alarming power, new Peers 
 may be created for the purpose, and give their 
 vote in the decision. That your Majesty's Minis- 
 ters would advise these measures, if found neces- 
 sary to render their prosecution successful, there 
 can be very little doubt; seeing that they have 
 hitherto stopped at nothing, however unjust or 
 odious. 
 
 To regard such a body as a Court of Justice 
 would be to calumniate that sacred name ; and 
 for me to suppress an expression of my opinion 
 on the subject would be tacitly to lend myself to 
 my own destruction, as well as to an imposition 
 upon the nation and the world. 
 
 In the House of Commons I can discover no 
 better grounds of security. The power of your 
 Majesty's Ministers is the same in both Houses; 
 and your Majesty is well acquainted with the 
 
15 
 
 fact, that a majority of this House is composed of 
 persons placed in it by the Peers and by your 
 Majesty's Treasury. 
 
 It really gives me pain to state these things to 
 your Majesty; and, if it gives your Majesty pain, 
 I beg that it may be observed, and remembered, 
 that the statement has been forced from me. I 
 must either protest against this mode of trial, or, 
 by tacitly consenting to it, suffer my honour to 
 be sacrificed. No innocence can secure the 
 accused, if the Judges and Jurors be chosen 
 by the accuser; and if I were tacitly to submit 
 to a tribunal of this description, I should be in- 
 strumental in my ovi^n dishonour. 
 
 On these grounds I protest against this spe- 
 cies of trial. I demand a trial in a Court where 
 the Jurors are taken impartially from amongst 
 the people, and where the proceedings are open 
 and fair. Such a trial I court, and to no other 
 will I willingly submit. If your Majesty perse- 
 vere in the present proceeding, I shall, even in 
 the Houses of Parliament, face my accusers; 
 but I shall regard any decision they may make 
 against me as not in the smallest degree reflect- 
 ing on my honour; and I will not, except com- 
 pelled by actual force, submit to any sentence 
 which shall not be pronounced by a Court of 
 Justice, 
 
 I have now frankly laid before your Majesty a 
 statement of my wrongs, and a declaration of 
 
16 
 
 tny views and intentions. You have cast upon 
 me every slur to which the female character is 
 liable. Instead of loving, honouring, and che- 
 rishing me, agreeably to your solemn vow, you 
 have pursued me with hatred and scorn, and 
 with all the means of destruction. You wrested 
 from me my child, and with her my only com- 
 fort and consolation. You sent me sorrowing 
 through the world, and even in my sorrows pur- 
 sued me with unrelenting persecution. Having 
 left me nothing but my innocence, you would 
 now, by.a«ipckery of justice, depriye me even 
 of the reputation of ppssessingthat^ The poi- 
 soned bowl and the ' poniard . are means more 
 manly than perjured witnesses and partial tri- 
 bunals ; and they :ai*e:l^ss cruel, ipasmuch as life 
 IS less valuable thein honour. If rpy life would 
 have satisfied your Majesty, yqu should have 
 had it on the. sole condition of giving me a place 
 in the same tomb with my child : but, since you 
 would send me dishonoured to the grave, I will 
 resist the attempt with all the means that it 
 shall please God to give me. 
 
 (Signed) CAROLINE R. 
 
 Brandenburgh Hottse, 
 Jug, 7, 1820. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 J. M'Creery, Tooks-Court, 
 Ch»acci7-'Lan«, Looduu.