[For context, Caroline and her husband, the future King George IV, hated each other and George was constantly looking for a scandal large enough that he could legally divorce his wife.]
For a while it was just talk, but then Caroline gave the prince almost the scandal he needed to divorce her.
Caroline had a weird habit of collecting babies. To her credit, she seemed chiefly concerned with finding good homes for the foundlings. But in 1802, she adopted a baby boy named William Austin, known thereafter as Willikin, and bizarrely pretended that he was her own. Why she thought it would be funny to say so is unclear, but it’s likely she just wanted to cause a fuss. Her allies, including her father-in-law, King George III, dismissed the stories of a bastard child as idle talk, and her foes could prove nothing because there was nothing to prove.
But by 1806, Caroline had committed a critical error: she made enemies of the Douglases, her former friends and neighbors. It was to Lady Douglas that Caroline first pretended that Willikin was her child. After a few months of close friendship, however, Caroline grew bored with the couple and was rude when Lady Douglas came to call. When Lady Douglas wrote to Caroline implying that she had secrets about the princess she was willing to spill, Caroline reacted in a spectacularly ill-considered fashion. She sent her former friend obscene and harassing “anonymous” letters featuring poorly drawn pictures of Lady D performing a sex act. The Douglases were quite sure the letters were from Caroline – at least one bore her royal seal.
The offended Douglases (who, it should be noted, were also perpetually broke) marched straight to the prince and made it clear they would swear that Willikin was Caroline’s bastard child. For good measure, Lady Douglas even accused the princess of trying to touch and kiss her inappropriately. Armed with such evidence, the prince demanded an investigation into his estranged wife’s supposed infidelity. The ensuing “Delicate Investigation,” as it was called, was conducted by a secret government committee. Witnesses included everyone from Caroline’s footman to her portrait painter, Thomas Lawrence. Ultimately, Willikin’s real mother testified that she’d indeed given him up to the princess when he was four months old, and the commission had no choice but to clear Caroline of all accusations. Prinney [George’s nickname] wouldn’t get his divorce so easily.
Source:
McRobbie, Linda Rodriguez. “Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, The Princess Who Didn’t Wash.” Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories From History-- Without the Fairy-Tale Endings. MJF Books, 2013. 216-17. Print.
Further Reading:
Caroline of Brunswick (Caroline Amelia Elizabeth)
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