took the whole blame on herself, saying that she
had proposed the drives, that "Princess Charlotte
might see the carriages," poor child! for
her life was so monotonous and cheerless, added
Cornelia, she thought it her duty to do all she
could to brighten it. Slavey was ill of her
scolding, nevertheless, and wrote to Lady Liverpool
a long letter of self-justification, according
to her wont; and the royal mountain and the
Chiswick mouse finally dissolved away in smoke,
as is the rule with such royal mountains in the
enchanted regions of a court. The Orange affair
was now the chief thought of the world in which
Princess Charlotte lived her brief day; how
to get her finally disposed of, the Regent's main
care. And though she had no inclination towards
the match or the man; though she told
Sir Henry Halford that she would prefer her
cousin of Gloucester to any man she knew;
though she had a picture, like the Duke of
Devonshire, hanging up in her room; and
though, again, she told her mother that she
thought the Prince of Orange so ugly she was
often obliged to turn away her head in disgust
when he was speaking to her; yet the love of
liberty and the hope of independence were
stronger in her than admiration, kinship, or
disgust; and in a very short time she was
brought to accept the engagement offered to her,
consenting to be the betrothed of the plain and
sickly-looking young soldier, whose ears she
would have boxed before they had been married
a week and a day. That she did not undertake
this engagement with any large amount of
graciousness or good-will, may be inferred from
the characteristic fact that when she went to
dine at her father's, on the eventful day which
was to fix her fate, she went in the most unbecoming
and dowdyish dress she had—violet satin
and black lace—which was not a combination
likely to suit her fair young liberal figure. The
little bit of girlish spite and spleen put into that
choice of costume is very amusing.

The marriage was ultimately broken off,
because the princess was afraid she should be sent
out of the country.  She thought it as well that
she should remain in it, and fight her own battles,
and her mother's, on the field of action; and
because she was, characteristically, kept in
ignorance of her father's intentions with respect to
her foreign residence, if even she had consented to
live abroad, he meaning, or saying that he meant,
that she should hold her own court at Brussels,
and she believing that she was to be shut up in
the same house with the father and mother
Orange, all among the dykes and the Dutchmen,
with no more independence than she had at
present—a home in a frightful country, with the
addition of an unwelcome husband and the loss
of personal friends, the only changes in the
outward conditions of her life. So then there was
more stormy weather between the Regent and
the heiress. Slavey went backwards and forwards
with messages and letters, and there were
intrigues here and intrigues there, and the
whole courtly atmosphere was in a turmoil and
a flame. And of course a Russian woman got
mixed up in the fray; and because the  Russian
court had its own designs on the Orange
prince, the young lady's dissatisfaction was
fanned and fomented, and Prince Augustus of
Prussia, but specially Prince Leopold of Saxe-
Coburg, were manoeuvred into her way, and
pressed on her notice, so that the plot might be
made so thick and slab not the keenest-sighted
among them would discover the truth, nor the
deftest-handed extricate it from the lies and
intrigues with which it was mixed up. Of
Prince Leopold, Miss Knight says that he was
"a handsome young man, a general in the
Russian service, brother-in-law to the Grand-
Duke Constantine, and a great favourite with
the Emperor of Russia. He paid many
compliments to Princess Charlotte, who was by no
means partial to him, and only received him with
civility." However, he got her great friend,
Miss Mercer Elphinstone, on his side, and Miss
Mercer Elphinstone had almost unbounded
influence with the Princess; and he crept into
the Regent's favour; and though his first
proposals were rejected by that exemplary father
and most moral man, yet the handsome young
German general knew the value of time and
tide, and in his due season rode triumphantly
over the bar, where better craft had been
wrecked. Mysterious reports got about how
that he was frequently admitted to tea at Warwick
House—Princess Charlotte's town temple
—where he was on the most delightfully easy
and familiar terms with her, her gouvernante
the dear old duchess who was so fond of calomel
and shower-baths, and even with starch-necked
Slavey herself; all of which reports, though
contradicted, as of course, yet set certain ideas
afloat, and accustomed the public to the notion
that the penniless, handsome, cool-headed Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, was not an unlikely
match for the future Queen of England.

In the midst of this pleasant, crafty game,
came the Regent's thundering command that
the princess should dismiss her gouvernante, her
ladies, and her servants, leave Warwick House
for Carlton House where she was to be confined
for five days, then carried off to Cranbourne
Lodge in the midst of Windsor Forest.
And when there, she was to see no one but the
horrible old queen once a week: the person whom,
of all the world, she most hated, and who most
hated her. In short, she was to hold herself as
a criminal and a prisoner, and trust to her
father's love and mercy alone for things to
come right.  On hearing this new trouble, the
princess rushed down those convenient back
stairs, without which court life would be unendurable,
flung herself into a common hackney-coach,
and flew off alone to her mother's: about
the most imprudent thing the poor headstrong,
passionate girl could have done. Then the row
became general, and things came to their climax;
as they do when nothing worse can possibly
happen. Her flight caused the most intense
excitement.  The Dukes of York and Sussex,
Lords Eldon, Liverpool, and Ellenborough, the
Bishop of Salisbury, Mr. Henry Brougham, and