The Strangest Family

by Janice Hadlow

  It is impossible not to feel that George’s love for his wife in these early years was a strong and genuine emotion. For a man not given to extravagant declarations, he was uncharacteristically voluble in expressing the pleasure he took in her company. ‘Every hour convinces me more and more of the treasure I have got,’ he once wrote delightedly to Bute, describing his marriage ‘as the source of my happiness as a private man’. However, as George’s brother recognised, contained in the unfeigned reality of his sentiments was a whiff of emotional despotism.63 His love for Charlotte was real, but it required from her an almost total resignation of self, a willingness to subsume all her interests in his, to submit utterly to his powerful instinct to own and control. As she quickly came to understand, George’s affection was ruthlessly proprietorial. It is perhaps significant that the only recorded declaration of her own feelings in these early years was couched in language she must have known would please him most. Writing to Bute in May 1762, George had noted with satisfaction that Charlotte, ‘with her usual affection, expressed herself as this effect … that my conduct to her made her esteem herself as belonging to me and me only’.64

  If there was a darker side to the ideal of affectionate marriage, it lay perhaps in the potential for extreme self-absorption and isolation on the part of the couple at its heart. A quiet domestic life, shared by two like-minded and reasonable people, could, if their privacy was too strictly and narrowly enforced, start to feel more like confinement than contentment. Gloucester was not the only observer to wonder whether that had not been Charlotte’s experience. Mrs Mary Harcourt, who came from a family of courtiers and saw much of Charlotte in later life, agreed with his reading of events: ‘Coming over, with natural good spirits, eagerly expecting to be queen of a gay court, finding herself confined in a convent, and hardly allowed to think without the leave of her husband, checked her spirits, made her fearful and cautious to an extreme, and when the time came that amusements were allowed, her mind was formed to a different manner of life.’65 If there was a price to be paid for the success of George and Charlotte’s marriage, it was clear from the outset that it would be Charlotte’s duty to pay it.

  In her younger days at least, Charlotte may have felt that too much attention from a husband was to be preferred to none at all, or to the routine humiliations of ill-concealed infidelities. Neither she nor George could have been happy in the loosely amoral partnerships that were the experience of so many of their aristocratic contemporaries. They were, as they thankfully recognised, fortunate in sharing a much more positive view of marriage as the foundation of all social and personal happiness, and luckier still in that both were prepared to try to live up to the ideals they so eagerly embraced in theory. In the earliest years of their partnership, they were rewarded for their efforts and experienced some of the fullest pleasures that the eighteenth-century married state could offer. It was true that when scrutinised closely, their relationship already contained within it seeds of the difficulties that would later reshape it in altogether less glowing colours; but, by any standards – and especially those of other royal partnerships – they had embarked on their union with all the willingness to make it work that defined the most successful modern marriages. Confident in having found the right wife, secure in the happy state of his home, George was ready to begin the next stage of his great family project. ‘I have now but one wish as a public man,’ he confessed, ‘and that is that God will make her fruitful.’66

  CHAPTER 6

  Fruitful

  FROM THE VERY MOMENT GEORGE and Charlotte were married, speculation began about how long it would take them to produce an heir. Just after their wedding, Bute told the king that predictions had acquired a competitive edge. Wagers were being taken on their having a child before Bute’s eldest daughter and her new husband, who had married the day before the royal couple. Though not a betting man, George was clearly confident enough of his own prowess cheerfully to take on all comers: ‘The king told Lord Orford he should be glad to go his halves.’1

  George won his bet. In February 1762, he confided to Bute that Charlotte ‘had been forced to retire from Chapel and did not appear at the Drawing Room’. As the father of a large family himself, Bute would surely understand what had prompted her absence. ‘My dearest friend is too conversant not to guess what this is,’ he wrote excitedly. ‘I say nothing, but deny nothing. She now calls with impatience for her dinner. I desire the whole of this may remain entre nous.’2 There was little chance of that. A few weeks later, Horace Walpole had heard that the queen was ‘breeding’; soon, everyone else in the fashionable and political worlds knew it too.

  The confirmation of a first pregnancy was a mixed blessing for an eighteenth-century wife. On the one hand, it was a joyous event, a declaration of her status as a potential mother, still regarded as the most appropriate and fulfilling destiny for any woman; but it also pitched her into a world of dangerous – indeed life-threatening – uncertainty. Even for someone as young and apparently healthy as Charlotte, the risks inherent in childbirth were considerable. Although recent scholarship has tended to revise downwards the numbers of women dying in labour – one study suggests the mortality risk was about 6 to 7 per cent across a woman’s reproductive career – complications arising from childbirth were probably still the most common cause of death for women of child-rearing age.3 Grimly matter-of-fact accounts of maternal suffering, frequently resulting in the loss of both mother and child, echo tragically throughout every collection of journals, diaries or letters of the eighteenth century. Every pregnant woman must have known someone – a sister, a friend or even her own mother – who had not survived the experience.

  Nothing could offer absolute peace of mind for an anxious husband and wife about to embark on this unpredictable journey, but those who could afford it tried to insure themselves against disaster by seeking from the outset the best possible care. Usually, it was the woman herself, in conjunction with her female friends, who found and appointed the practitioners she wanted around her; but Charlotte had no network of family or acquaintances to guide her. In the spring, it was the king who made the first tentative enquiries, writing to Bute on ‘a subject of much consequence to me now’. He wanted to know the name ‘of the midwife Lady Bute made use of, after Mrs Cannon’s death, that I may recommend her, if she is still able to attend ladies’.4 The veteran Mrs Cannon had assisted Princess Augusta, delivering all her children, including George himself, and the king hoped to find someone similarly dependable to minister to Charlotte. In the event, Mrs Mary Draper was eventually engaged, but whether through the recommendation of Lady Bute is not known.

  Mrs Draper was a well-regarded expert with an extensive clientele, and prosperous enough to own a substantial house in Soho. She was, as tradition prescribed, a grandmother with many years’ direct experience of the process of childbirth. Like all midwives, her skills were acquired through practical experience rather than academic tuition; women were excluded from formal medical education in Britain.

  For centuries, the delivery of children had remained the responsibility of female midwives like Mrs Draper; by the mid-eighteenth century, however, their primacy in the birthing chamber was increasingly challenged by the arrival of medically trained doctors. These ‘man-midwives’, as they were known, were the product of fifty years of philosophical enquiry, during which pregnancy had become a subject of consuming interest to scientists, surgeons and physicians. One of the first midwifery schools opened in 1739, in St James’s, under eminent man-midwife Sir Richard Manningham. Anatomical study, especially knowledge gained from the dissection of dead bodies, had transformed the clinical understanding of female physiology. Ideas based on detailed observation rather than the received wisdom of the classical world had resulted in far greater understanding of the natural processes of pregnancy, from conception to birth; and this in turn had produced advances in the practical management of labour. A better appreciation of the function of the uterus and the position of the
baby within it made possible the development of forceps, which, though not without risk in their application, nevertheless transformed outcomes in many cases of obstructed deliveries. Before their invention, the only way to prevent the death of the mother was to cut the child into pieces and remove it limb by limb from the womb; the skilled use of forceps now offered a potentially life-saving alternative for the woman and her baby.

  The exclusion of women from the institutions which developed such techniques meant that much of the new expertise was not easily accessible to female midwives. Perhaps as a result, from the 1760s onwards, there was a decline in the status and authority of midwives, matched by a corresponding rise in that of their male counterparts or accoucheurs. This has been interpreted by some historians as a defeat inflicted on traditional female skills by the male authority of doctors, the destruction of a world of hard-won experience by an imposed professionalism which took the management of pregnancy out of the hands of women and placed it into an artificially medicalised world from which it has struggled ever since to escape. There may be some truth in this; not all accoucheurs were as expert as some of the midwives they displaced, and the more invasive techniques they practised did not always rebound to the benefit of mother or baby, especially when insufficient attention to cleanliness resulted in internal infection.

  However, recent research suggests that from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, amongst those who could afford it, the medically trained man-midwife was overwhelmingly the choice of the pregnant woman herself.5 The flight from total reliance upon the traditional midwife was not achieved as a result of a sustained male conspiracy to drive out them out; on the contrary, some husbands were suspicious of the motives and opportunities available to the man-midwife, ‘these touching gentry’, as one uneasy commentator described them. The decline of the midwife was a result of decisions made by women themselves, who were quickly convinced that the benefits of the professional specialist outweighed his shortcomings. Indeed, younger women may have welcomed the presence of a doctor as a means of freeing themselves from what could feel like the stifling weight of traditional practice imposed by their mothers and an older generation. By 1762, for nearly all aristocratic women, the appointment of a specialist doctor to oversee both pregnancy and labour was considered a necessity.

  George and Charlotte were thus entirely in step with contemporary practice when, alongside Mrs Draper, they invited Dr William Hunter to manage the queen’s pregnancy. Hunter, one of the many formidably clever Scots who did so much to shape eighteenth-century learning, had trained as a doctor in Edinburgh, then, as now, a centre of excellence in medicine. Always interested in gynaecology, he began his career investigating the female reproductive system by observing its function in animals. He made huge advances, both in understanding and practice, when studying in Paris, where he was allowed to work extensively on human corpses. Returning to London, he soon established a reputation as an inquisitive and energetic scientist. He was a brilliant dissector, and communicated his discoveries in electrifying talks; one of his pupils described him as ‘the most perfect demonstrator as well as lecturer the world has ever known’. In 1774, he published the fruits of a lifetime of research in his book The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus. Everything Hunter had learnt through decades of careful observation was encompassed in a series of precise and extraordinarily beautiful drawings which illustrated the progress of a child’s development from foetus to full-term baby, and established for the first time that mother and child had separate blood supplies.6

  Hunter was a man of phenomenal activity, with a finger in every philosophical or institutional pie; he was physician to the British Lying-In Hospital, owner of a private academy of anatomy, holder of numerous fellowships and a fervent acquirer of a vast collection of natural and mineral curiosities. He also ran a very successful – and extremely lucrative – private practice as a man-midwife. When George and Charlotte engaged him in 1762, he was a familiar presence in the grandest aristocratic homes, having attended, among others, the Pitts, Foxes, Norths and Graftons. His unparalleled physiological knowledge assisted him in his professional success, and his suave, discreet and calmly authoritative manner was also a huge asset in dealing with apprehensive patients; in Hunter, the qualities of the society doctor were combined with the rigour of a first-class scientist. It is hard to think that the king and queen could have made a better choice of attendant.

  Hunter’s wealth and consequence, his uncontested place as the tallest and grandest pillar of the burgeoning obstetric medical establishment, had not turned him into a medical conservative. In the journal he kept as a record of his experiences with his royal clients, he confidently declared that ‘labour is not a disease’. From this strikingly modern conviction followed much of his management of Charlotte throughout her pregnancy. He was sceptical of the value of bloodletting, the eighteenth-century panacea for any physical problem, prescribing instead ‘greater quiet’ when Charlotte felt ‘a kind of palpitation’ at six months. He insisted the queen be excused further royal duties, stipulating that ‘she should go no more to the Chapel or Drawing Room’ and avoid ‘everything that could in the least tire or hurry her’.7

  Charlotte’s pregnancy advanced without further incident until 12 August, when, some nine days after her due date, Hunter was called to St James’s, ‘at ½ after five in the morning’. At about the same time, the king scribbled ‘a scrawl’ to Bute telling him that ‘the dear queen is very near her time’ and adding that his mother was already there, to oversee proceedings. When Hunter arrived, some time after the eager dowager princess, he waited in one of the outer rooms with many others who claimed a right of attendance at royal births, including the Ladies of the Bedchamber, members of the Cabinet, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Throughout Charlotte’s delivery, the queen’s accoucheur never actually entered the room where she gave birth. He was there to be called upon if matters took an unfavourable turn; until then, practical management of labour remained the territory of the midwife.

  From time to time, as Charlotte’s labour progressed, Mary Draper obligingly emerged to inform the doctor what was happening. ‘A little after six, Mrs Draper came to us and told us that all was in a very natural way,’ recorded Hunter, ‘but that appearances indicated it would be slow.’ To everyone’s surprise, suddenly things began to move very quickly. ‘At half an hour after seven, when I little expected it, from what Mrs Draper had told us, the prince was born.’8 It was an entirely successful outcome, apparently achieved without great suffering on the mother’s part. The Duchess of Northumberland, who was among the ladies congregated in the outer room, noted that ‘the queen’s labour was short (two hours) but severe’, adding approvingly that ‘she scarce cried out at all’.9 As soon as the baby was born, ‘the ladies went into the room, and soon after came the archbishop’. Only after the latter had seen enough to make a formal declaration that the child was truly the queen’s was Hunter allowed into the delivery room to see the young prince. He ‘examined him all over, and found him perfect, with every mark of health, and of a large size’.10 The boy was given ‘two large teaspoons-full of purging mixture’ as a precaution, but Hunter thought he looked extremely well.

  Whilst Hunter assessed the new baby, Charlotte’s attendants argued about who should go and tell the king that he was now a father. Lord Huntingdon claimed the right, although, perhaps confused by the altercation, he promptly informed George that the baby was a girl, ‘to which the king replied that he was but little anxious as to the sex of the child, so the queen was but safe’. Reassured about Charlotte, and corrected about the gender of the newborn, George ‘went to the bedchamber, and soon after the child was brought out and shown to all, a strong, large pretty boy he is, as ever was seen’.11 Everyone was overjoyed – the king, the ladies, the Cabinet, the archbishop and, of course, Dr Hunter, whose supervision had proved such an unalloyed triumph. But it was the woman at the centre of events who had most reason to feel both relieved and elated. J
ust eleven months after her marriage, Charlotte had fulfilled her primary dynastic purpose. She was the mother of a healthy heir – George, Prince of Wales – and, as an added bonus, was still alive herself.

  In the days after the birth, Hunter again demonstrated his forward-looking approach in his treatment of the queen. Custom dictated that newly delivered women kept to their rooms for at least a month, battened down against mishap, with windows closed and every crevice stuffed tight against draughts. Their friends might visit them, but physical activity of any kind on their part was strictly discouraged. Hunter, however, sought to get Charlotte out of bed as soon as possible; but his patient proved to be more of a traditionalist than her doctor. Although there was clearly nothing wrong with her – Hunter thought her ‘remarkably well’, noting her ‘cheerful spirits’ and recording that she ‘laughed heartily’ – she refused to be dislodged from her bed. Disingenuously, she told Hunter that she was ‘desirous of doing nothing but what he thought best’, and then completely ignored his advice. She would not get up, nor would she eat the healthy meals he prescribed, telling him that ‘she desired to live some days upon broth, caudle and tea rather than to eat chicken’.12 Caudle, a gruel fortified with wine that was customarily given to new mothers, was clearly not regarded as highly by Hunter as it was by Charlotte. He told the queen that ‘she should have no more draughts and she ought to get up’. Although Charlotte obediently spent ‘an hour on the couch’, she was soon back in bed again, and, noted an exasperated Hunter, ‘still would not eat chicken’. It wasn’t until 20 August that the queen finally left her bed. On the same day Hunter noted with satisfaction that she ‘ate with appetite almost a whole chicken … and felt quite well’.13 Seeing this, he knew his job was over. Charlotte was soon back in her accustomed place besides her husband, who was delighted and perhaps a little surprised to see how little the experience of childbearing had changed her. ‘The queen is just up,’ George wrote to Bute, ‘and is, thank heaven, very well and just as nimble as she was a year ago.’ His son, too, was thriving. ‘He never stirred for six hours last night, and seems three months older than yesterday.’14