showed their
satisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, from
the King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted his
sister-in-law on a visit to the Court.

But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end. The
Princess returned to London, and found a more suitable home in
Kensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry of
that of her husband at Carlton House. Here she was subjected to every
affront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity of
hatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, her
daughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recognise
her when their carriages passed in the street or park.

Can we wonder that, under such remorseless persecutions, the Princess
became more and more defiant; that she gave herself up to a life of
recklessness and extravagance; that, more and more isolated from her own
world, she sought her pleasure and her companions in undesirable
quarters, finding her chief intimates in a family of Italian musicians;
or that finally, heart-broken and despairing, she determined once for
all to shake off the dust of a land that had treated her so cruelly?

In August, 1814, with the approval of King and Parliament, the Princess
left England to begin a career of amazing adventures and indiscretions,
the story of which is one of the most remarkable in history.

CHAPTER XIX

THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_continued_

When Caroline, Princess of Wales, shook the dust of England off her feet
one August day in the year 1814, it was only natural that her steps
should first turn towards the Brunswick home which held for her at least
a few happy memories, and where she hoped to find in sympathy and old
associations some salve for her wounded heart.

But the fever of restlessness was in her blood--the restlessness which
was to make her a wanderer over the face of the earth for half a dozen
years. The peace and solace she had looked for in Brunswick eluded her;
and before many days had passed she was on her way through Switzerland
to the sunny skies of Italy, where she could perhaps find in distraction
and pleasure the anodyne which a life of retirement denied her. She was
full of rebellion against fate, of hatred against her husband and his
country which had treated her with such unmerited cruelty. She would
defy fate; she would put a whole continent between herself and the
ni