An obstetric diary of William Hunter, 1762-1765 / edited, with notes, by J. Nigel Stark.
- William Hunter
- Date:
- 1908
Licence: In copyright
Credit: An obstetric diary of William Hunter, 1762-1765 / edited, with notes, by J. Nigel Stark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![ignorance of the secret proceedings, but he was so much under the control of his mother and Lord Bute that he stolidly accepted, without protest, the wife chosen for him. Accordingly, Lord Harcourt was despatched to Mecklenburg, where he formally carried through the preliminary ceremony of marriage by proxy. After its performance the journey to England was begun, and on 6th September, 1761, the royal yacht reached Harwich. Two days later, the Princess arrived in London, and in a few hours afterwards she was married to the man whom she had met that day for the first time in her life. The wedding took place at 9 o’clock in the evening, and the presence of Lady Sarah Lennox as a bridesmaid must have lent a piquant zest to the thoughts of the cynics and the tongues of the gossips. The description of the Queen’s per- sonal appearance, given by Walpole and others, is not flattering. She was small, pale, and insignificant-looking, and, unfortunately, had no qualities of mind to counter- balance the want of beauty. But the Dowager Princess, a woman of autocratic temperament and ambitious to retain an influence over her son, did not ask for beauty, and, still less, for mental endowments in a daughter-in-law. The most fitting wife, therefore, appeared to have been discovered in this girl, 17 years of age, born and educated in the seclusion of a petty German duchy, speaking English hardly at all, and ignorant of court intrigues and social ambitions. Hunter’s diary throws very little light upon her character, but there can be no doubt that had George III not been married to a woman sordid and selfish, narrow-minded and ignorant, and absolutely unfit for her queenly position, but to one who could have wisely counsel] ed her unintelligent husband, able to read the signs of the times, and with determination and character strong enough to counteract the plottings of the Princess of Wales and her favourite, Bute, and thus to assist the great Pitt, there is a possibility, by no means remote, that the history of Britain—of the world—would read very differently to-day from what it does. The obstinate attempt](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24930957_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
