George Augustus, Duke of Cumberland

“ Then did very many respectable persons, formerly thought to be excellently well affected towards King George's person and Government, become waverers, or prove themselves the Turncoats they had always, in secret, been, and seditiously prophesy that the days of the Hanoverian dynasty were numbered. Then did spies and traitors abound, together with numbers of alarming rumours, that the Chevalier had advanced as far as Barnet on the Great North Road; that his Majesty was about to convey himself away to Hanover; that the Duke of Cumberland was dead ”

“ After the passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701 it was proposed to grant an English title to George Augustus, electoral prince of Hanover, who, after his grandmother, the electress Sophia, and his father, the elector George Louis, was heir to the throne of England; and to give effect to this proposal George Augustus was created marquess and duke of Cambridge in November 1706. The title lapsed when he became king of Great Britain and Ireland in 1727, but it was revived in 1801 in favour of Adolphus Frederick, the seventh son of George III. He and his son are dealt with below. ”

“ He was the natural son of Duke Augustus II. of Saxony, who later became King of Poland, and who is known in history as Augustus the Strong.
Augustus was a giant in stature and in strength, handsome, daring, unscrupulous, and yet extremely fascinating. His life was one of revelry and fighting and display. When in his cups he would often call for a horseshoe and twist it into a knot with his powerful fingers. Many were his mistresses; but the one for whom he cared the most was a beautiful and high-spirited Swedish girl of rank, Aurora von Konigsmarck. ”

“ As he grew older, he loved art more and more. The only thing else that attracted his eye was the city-full of soldiers, at the beginning of the Civil War. He read the bulletin boards, heard groups of men telling about battles, and his heart ached with love for America. He wanted to go to war to show that love. But his father was now sure that Augustus was a genius and insisted upon his going to Europe to study. The father could not give him much money, hardly more than enough to get him across the ocean, but he could cut cameos to pay for his lessons. ”

“ Still it was supposed that he was training his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus, or his stepson Tiberius, to be his successor. The former was curule-ædile, and seems to have conceived the ambition of succeeding his uncle. But when he thought death approaching, Augustus did not designate either of these young men. He handed his seal to Agrippa, and the official records of the army and revenue to Cn. Calpurnius Piso, his colleague in the consulship. He would play his part as constitutional magistrate to the last. To speculate on what might have been is not very profitable. ”

“ THE NEW RULER Few persons have set their stamp more indelibly on the pages of history than Octavian, whom we may now call by his more familiar name Augustus ("Majestic") . Augustus was no military genius to dazzle the world with his achievements. He was a cool and passionless statesman who took advantage of a memorable opportunity to remake the Roman state, and who succeeded in the attempt. Absolute power, which destroys weaker men, with Augustus brought out the nobler elements of character. From the successful leader of a party he became the wise and impartial ruler of an empire. ”

“ In appearance Sir Augustus is of medium height, stoutly built, and never at a loss for a smile. He is partially bald, but, as he declares, the hard work associated with management is sufficient to make any man lose his hair. No man has a keener eye than he; no man can scent a bargain quicker. He will bid for a voice one moment, and a hundred guineas for some exquisite lace to put on a chorus singer's costume the next. ”

“ The Roman populace had grown thoroughly accustomed to the notion that its maintenance was the business of the state and would have liked nothing better than to have the emperor give them drink as well as food. Whenever wine grew dear they addressed complaints to him. But Augustus calmly replied that since the aqueducts of Agrippa had been completed no one in Rome need suffer thirst. Augustus had organised the maintenance of Rome on a large and liberal scale, but that which had formerly been a free-will offering became in his reign an eleemosynary institution. ”

“ There was a talk yesterday of changes in the Admiralty, but without foundation. Lord Lisbourne, who dined with us yesterday at Lord Ashburnham's, did not seem to think that there would be a change of any sort. I hope he means as to men then only; for if measures and conduct are not to be changed we are completely undone, supposing anything of that now left to do.
The Duke of Newcastle's youngest son is at Lisbon for his health, and not likely to live. What is become, or will become, of his eldest God knows. ”

“ The Duke of Cumberland is a field-marshal, and a BRAVER man, IT IS SAID, never entered the FIELD; but in a dark room, with a man little more than half his weight, it would have been cowardly to fight, particularly as his royal highness might, IF HE HAD SO WISHED, have taken the weapon out of Sellis' hand, and broken it about his [161] head. No! no! the Duke of Cumberland knew what was due to his honour better than to take so mean an advantage of a weak adversary, and therefore coolly endeavoured to ring his bell, that a more suitable antagonist might be procured in his valet Neale! ”

“ From the time of his death the Emperor seems more and more to have become his own prime minister, or to have looked to his own family for assistance as well as for a successor. Tacitus (Ann. 3, 30) says that his place was taken by Sallustius Crispus, great-nephew of the historian; but Augustus does not seem to have thought highly of his ability, and the part he took in affairs was not prominent enough to have secured mention by either Suetonius or Dio. Mæcenas wrote himself both in prose and verse, but in an affected and obscure style, which Augustus playfully ridiculed. ”

“ After [8] the review the King, with the Dukes of Cumberland, Sussex, and Gloucester, and Prince George and the Prince of Prussia, and the Duchess of Cumberland’s son, came in through the garden gate; the Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Augusta were already there; they breakfasted and then went away, the Duke of Gloucester bowing to the company while nobody was taking any notice of him or thinking about him. Nature must have been merry when she made this Prince, and in the sort of mood that certain great artists used to exhibit in their comical caricatures ”

“ Alas! either your apothecary is but an ignorant quack, or his science itself is but in its cradle. He blunders as much as you would do if left to your own selection. Those who have recourse to him seldom speak gratefully of his skill. He relieves you, it is true,—but of your money, not your malady; and the only branch of his profession in which he is an adept is that which enables him to bleed you! O mankind!" continued Augustus, "what noble creatures you ought to be! You have keys to all sciences, all arts, all mysteries, but one! You have not a notion how you ought to be governed ”

“ If there was some system, a little method, and an air of business about the passion and principle of the puissant Prince Augustus, something thereof must be laid to the charge of the times, and a little to the princely matter-of-fact good sense: he is a wise and merciful man who, before he comes to conclusions with a lady on the chapter of matrimony, first weighs prospects, and establishes, as far as in him lies, a security of sunshine. ”

“ His mother's anxious scrutiny marked the pallor and symptoms of yielding to what she thought his father's mesmeric influence.
She could not fully understand and comprehend the boy's reluctance to forcible restraint. She watched his face eagerly and saw that he was nervous and uneasy, and strove to defeat the dreaded condition by the might of her will.
Augustus finally threw down his utensils impetuously, and said, "I am going to my father"; starting to move his chair back. This was a perfect confirmation of her fears. She instinctively tried to rise, saying in a harsh tone, "You cannot go." ”

“ But his compatriots looked on him as simply the chief citizen of their republic. They considered that of their own free will, to escape the dangers of further civil war, they had chosen to confer upon [Pg xii] one man, eminently "safe and sane," all the high offices whose holders had previously battled against one another. So Augustus was Emperor or Imperator, which meant no more than general of the armies of the Republic; he was Consul, or chief civil administrator of the Republic; he was Pontifex Maximus, high-priest of the Republic. ”

“ See Cleopatra's Conquest of Caesar and Antony, page 295.]
[Footnote 21: See Rome Becomes a Monarchy, page 333.]
Note, however, that the term "world" is still one of boast, not truth. Emperor over many men, Augustus was; but the powers of nature still shut many races safe beyond his mastery. The ocean bounded his dominion on the west; the deserts to the south and east; the German forests to the north. These last he did essay to conquer, but they proved beyond him. The wild German tribes having no cities, which they must defend at any cost, could afford to flee or hide. ”

“ Only the fire of love for her and the serenity of infinite peace.
"Dear lord," she said, "when the sceptre of Augustus is in thine hands thou canst wield it at thy pleasure. I know not the way of which thou speakest; the mountain of Calvary is unknown to me and thou speakest of things that are strange to mine ear.... But the gods have placed it within my power to make thee great above all men, the ruler of the mightiest Empire in the world, and on my knees do I thank them that they have shown me the way whereby I can guide thy footsteps even to the throne of Augustus." ”

“ And lastly such opposition as still existed was no longer of irreconcilables who had known “liberty”; a new generation had grown up which on the whole acquiesced in the peace and security of a benevolent despotism. It was a new era, and Augustus became a new man. Full of honours and possessed with irresistible powers, feeling the responsibility heavily, and often in vain desiring rest, he had no farther personal object to gain beyond the credit of having served his country and saved the Empire. ”

“ And yet if ever there was a man to whom it was proper that new and unprecedented honours should be voted, it was certainly fitting that such should be decreed to him, not only because he was as it were the origin and fountain of the family of Augustus, not because he was the first, and greatest, and universal benefactor, having, instead of the multitude of governors who existed before, entrusted the common vessel of the state to himself as one pilot of admirable skill in the science of government to steer and govern ”

“ When a great piece of work has been done in the world it is not difficult to find fault with it. A man seldom if ever sees the bearing and ultimate results of his own actions, or carries out all that he intended to do. Even when he seems to have done so, time reveals faults, miscalculations, failures. At an age when among us a boy is just leaving school, Augustus found himself the heir of a great policy and a great name amidst the ruins of a constitution and the disjecta membra of a great Empire. ”

“ Resigns his usurped power Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and disguised his ambition. "He lamented, yet excused, his past conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of his father's murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced connexion with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived, the republic forbad him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman and a barbarian queen. ”

“ He games only for amusement, and never plays so high that the loss of the Stake can put those out of temper who have the Honour to be of his Party. But of all the Virtues of Augustus III. there is none, most certainly, which has made him more the Favourite of Heaven, than the inviolable Respect he always manifested for the King his Father, who tenderly lov'd him; and never was a Son, Heir to so powerful a Dominion, more affected for the loss of a Father, than he was when he heard of the death of his. ”

“ The Diribitorium—the most spacious building ever constructed under one roof—where the populace received their corn allowance and voting tablets and the soldiery their pay, was the work of Agrippa.
Such was the constitution of the world-wide empire over which Augustus ruled as an absolute monarch with unlimited powers for forty-four years after the day of Actium. The frontier provinces were protected by standing armies, the members of which, collected from all countries and nationalities, had forsworn their native land and national spirit, and obeyed no orders but those of their military lord ”

“ The head of Augustus is very beautiful, and appears to be that of a meditative, philosophic man, saddened with the sense that it is not very much worth while to be at the summit of human greatness after all. ”

“ Is it conceivable that a man could have discharged so many responsibilities in times when the traditions of the government were only beginning to take form if he had not possessed a commanding personal authority, if he had not been the object of profound and general respect? Augustus would not have been able to govern so great an empire for more than forty years with such slight means had it not been for the fact, fortunate alike for himself and for the state, that he did enjoy this profound, sincere, and general admiration. ”