Queen Caroline in 1820 National Gallery of Scotland Public domain |
The Milan Commission
In the period after Charlotte's death, Caroline remained in Italy, increasingly under Pergami's influence. From the Regent's perspective, the death of their daughter opened up the possibility that he could divorce Caroline by Act of Parliament - provided he could find the evidence of adultery - and possibly remarry.In 1818 he appointed a commission of three persons, William Cooke, a barrister, J. A. Powell, a solicitor, and Major J. H. Browne, who spoke some Italian, to go to Milan and gather evidence against Caroline. In July 1819 they reported that there was conclusive evidence of adultery, but the government disagreed, believing it was not strong enough to be irrefutable. However, their evidence was to form the basis of the subsequent accusations against Caroline.
The return to England
On the death of George III and the accession of the Regent as George IV on 29 January 1820, Caroline’s name was omitted from the prayers for the royal family in the Anglican Prayer Book. She decided to return to England to claim her rights. Before she set sail she received at St Omer a letter on behalf of the king in which it was proposed to allow her £50,000 per annum on condition that she lived abroad and never visited England. But she turned it down and on 5 June 1820 she sailed from Calais. At Dover she was received with a royal salute, and the crowd was so immense that she had to take temporary refuge in the York Hotel. At Canterbury a hundred torches were lit for her and 10,000 people awaited her. At Gravesend people drew her carriage through the town. At Shooters Hill the radical pamphleteer, William Cobbett was awaiting her with a laurel bough.William Cobbett, radical pamphleteer and defender of the Queen Public domain |
On her arrival in London she went to the house of her friend, the radical MP Alderman Wood, in South Audley Street. Shortly afterwards, she appointed the lawyer, Thomas Denman, as her defence council. Meanwhile the mob rampaged around her house, householders were forced to light up, and the Home Secretary’s windows were broken.