The Duke of Newcastle made love
to her, but her affections were centred on the Duke of Grafton, to whom
she was privately married, as is confidently asserted.
The Princess Caroline was the darling of her family. Even the king
relied on her truth. When there was any dispute, he used to say, 'Send
for Caroline; she will tell us the right story.'
Her fate had its clouds. Amiable, gentle, of unbounded charity, with
strong affections, which were not suffered to flow in a legitimate
channel, she became devotedly attached to Lord Hervey: her heart was
bound up in him; his death drove her into a permanent retreat from the
world. No debasing connection existed between them; but it is misery, it
is sin enough to love another woman's husband--and that sin, that
misery, was the lot of the royal and otherwise virtuous Caroline.
The Princess Mary, another victim to conventionalities, was united to
Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse Cassel; a barbarian, from whom she
escaped, whenever she could, to come, with a bleeding heart, to her
English home. She was, even Horace Walpole allows, 'of the softest,
mildest temper in the world,' and fondly beloved by her sister Caroline,
and by the 'Butcher of Culloden,' William, Duke of Cumberland.
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