Princess Caroline herself draws an unattractive picture of her home-life, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell’s question, “Were you sorry to leave Brunswick?” “Not at all,” was the answer; “I was sick tired of it, though I was sorry to leave my fader.  I loved my fader dearly, better than any oder person.  But dere were some unlucky tings in our Court which made my position difficult.  My fader was most entirely attached to a lady for thirty years, who was in fact his mistress.  She was the beautifullest creature and the cleverest, but, though my fader continued to pay my moder all possible respect, my poor moder could not suffer this attachment.  And de consequence was, I did not know what to do between them; when I was civil to one, I was scolded by the other, and was very tired of being shuttlecock between them.”

But in spite of these unfortunate home conditions Caroline appears to have spent a fairly happy girlhood, thanks to her exuberant spirits; and such faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parental care, which left her training to servants.  Thus she grew up with quite a shocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, and finding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions.  Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to have been indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many a high-placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George of Darmstadt, to all of whom she seems to have turned a cold shoulder.

But the wilful Princess was not to be left mistress of her own destiny.  One November day, in 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at the Brunswick Court to demand her hand for the Prince of Wales, whom his burden of debts and the necessity of providing an heir to the throne of England were at last driving reluctantly to the altar.  And thus a new and dazzling future opened for her.  To her parents nothing could have been more welcome than this prospect of a crown for their daughter; while to her it offered a release from a life that had become odious.

“The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to her,” Malmesbury enters in his diary—­“pretty face, not expressive of softness—­her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable teeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what the French call ‘des epaules impertinentes,’ vastly happy with her future expectations.”

Such were Malmesbury’s first impressions of the future Queen of England, whom it was his duty to prepare for her exalted station—­a duty which he seems to have taken very seriously, even to the regulating of her toilette and her manners.  Thus, a few days after setting eyes on her, his diary records:  “She will call ladies whom she meets for the first time ‘Mon coeur, ma chere, ma petite,’ and I am obliged to rebuke and correct her.”  He lectures her on her undignified habit of whispering and giggling, and