by Jean Plaidy
He became very popular in Richmond and he was delighted that the local people there touched their forelocks or curtsied, according to sex, and called a ‘Good morning, sir’ instead of cheering for His Majesty.
And then there were the days with Charlotte. They both had a love of music and he would listen approvingly while she sang or played the harpsichord. Sitting with Charlotte, talking to her in German, he was happy; she sewed or embroidered and as he did not like to sit idly, he took up the craft of button-making to which he applied a great deal of patience.
But he did not forget the state matters in spite of the simple life. Every morning he arose at five to light the fire in his bedroom which his servants had laid the night before. Then he would go back to bed until the room was warmed up. After washing and dressing he would study state papers until it was time to breakfast with Charlotte.
Each morning he surveyed her with pleasure. She appeared in good health and there was no doubt that the simple life and Richmond air agreed with her. She was a goodly size and some of the experienced were saying the way she carried the child implied that it was a boy.
At eight o’clock they took breakfast.
‘Just a dish of tea for me, my dear Charlotte.’ His usual remark.
To which she replied: ‘Oh, but George, it is not enough.’
But he would sternly resist her efforts to press food on him. He was not going to indulge his inherited love of rich food – and incur the obesity which went with it, he told her. It was all part of the discipline of his life. He put it from him as he had Hannah Lightfoot and Sarah Lennox; and he accepted his dish of tea as though it was exactly all he desired, in the same way as he accepted the plain woman sitting opposite him.
Such happy days they were in spite of all the conflict in the government. Charlotte had no intention of concerning herself with that. Her thoughts were concentrated on the child.
*
On one of his visits to St James’s, George heard the news. It was Mr Fox who told him – slyly, thought George, taking pleasure in the discomfiture which he must know such a revelation would cause.
‘Your Majesty, my sister-in-law Sarah Lennox was married a few days ago.’
George felt his face growing pink.
‘Oh … is that so?’
‘Yes, Sire. In view of Your Majesty’s kind interest in her I thought you would wish to know.’
‘Er … yes …’
‘A quiet wedding in the chapel at Holland House. Not perhaps a brilliant match, but …’
‘Who was the bridegroom?’ asked George quickly.
‘Bunbury, Sire. Charles Bunbury. He is a fortunate man. He is not rich and of course heir to the baronetcy. But it is a match of her making and Your Majesty will agree with me that happiness does not depend on riches.’
‘H’m,’ grunted George, and turned away to speak to someone else. But he was not listening to what was said; he was thinking of Sarah, married to someone else; Sarah who might have been his wife.
*
The King returned to Richmond. How plain Charlotte was – plainer than ever now that her body was bulky! She was grotesque. He thought of Sarah, Sarah teaching him that dance, with the silly name, the Betty Blue, was it? Sarah laughing and teasing and making hay in the gardens of Holland House. He had given up Sarah for Charlotte – and now Sarah had another lover: Bunbury.
Silly name, thought George angrily. Who was Bunbury? A petty baronet … not even that until his father died … and no fortune either. But Sarah had never looked, for title and fortune. If she had would she ever have refused the King? And she had refused him at one time … although later she would have accepted him and then he was persuaded to take Charlotte instead. He might have had Sarah … and he had Charlotte.
There was no longer contentment for him at Richmond. He could not bear to look at Charlotte. His mind and body were crying out for Sarah and wherever he looked he saw her … with Bunbury.
He could not stay within walls; he went out and walked. It started to rain and he went on walking. The rain soothed him; it soaked through his clothes; it was inside his boots, but he didn’t care.
He found some savage pleasure in the discomfort.
He was cold and shivering when he returned; he felt feverish and was sneezing violently.
*
The King was suffering from acute influenza; he was delirious and to the doctors’ consternation his chest was covered with a rash which they could not identify as being a symptom of a known disease.
Charlotte insisted on nursing him and she was in despair because when she brought the doctors to bleed him he cried out that he did not want them. They should not touch him. His behaviour was very strange, and he was not like the reasonable, amenable young man they had known before.
‘Go away! Go away!’ he cried. ‘Leave me alone … all of you.’
There was great consternation throughout the Court, for it was believed the King might die. And then what? A Regency? What a state of affairs. A young king suddenly stricken down and the heir to the throne not yet born!
Charlotte now showed a strength of character which astonished those about her. This was the young woman who had written a letter to Frederick of Prussia. Nobody was going to turn her out of the sick room – not the King’s mother, nor Lord Bute. She was his wife and she was in command.
She ordered the doctors to bleed the King; and by this time George was far too ill to protest. She was in the sick room night and day and there was nothing anyone could do to shift her.
Under her care and that of the doctors George began to get better; and the day came when he was sitting up in bed asking for a little food, no longer feverish and quite lucid in his mind.
‘You will soon be well again,’ Charlotte told him.
‘That must be so, for I have affairs to attend to.’
‘Ah. You will not get up until you are well enough, I promise you.’
The King felt a surge of resentment. He was not going to be ruled by this bulky little creature. If she thought so, she must be quickly disillusioned.
‘I shall get up tomorrow,’ he said.
Charlotte regarded him tenderly and shook her head.
How dared she, who was not beautiful Sarah, how dared she tell him what he must or must not do.
When he heard from the doctors that the Queen had been a wonderful nurse, and that no one could have been so devoted, he softened towards her. She was a good woman; it was not her fault that she was not beautiful; she could not be blamed because beautiful Sarah had married Bunbury.
‘I hear you have been a good nurse,’ he told her. He must try to love her. She was carrying their child who might be the heir to the throne if he were a boy … and if it were a girl and there were no more children that child might be the Queen.
He must be good to Charlotte. He must forget Sarah Lennox and love his wife.
‘Of course I was your nurse. As if I would allow anyone else to nurse you.’
She had changed; she was less humble; she had been for a while in authority. If he allowed her she would be ready to advise him and guide him. That must not be. He could allow no woman to guide him – particularly one who failed to charm him.
‘And you are going to stay there until you are quite well.’ Spoken with loving firmness.
He said quietly but firmly, ‘I shall get up tomorrow.’
And he did. She protested, but he swept aside her protests.
He would not be dictated to. He was the King and he would make the decisions.
It was said that the King had risen far too soon from his sick bed; and sometimes George felt this to be true, but he was not going to allow Charlotte to decide what he should or should not do.
*
It was the beginning of August and the Queen’s time was drawing near. One morning at breakfast George said to her: ‘The heir to the throne must be born in London.’
‘Oh, but it is much more peaceful here at Richmond,’ cried Charlotte.
‘That may be so, but it is one of our traditions.’
Charlotte was sad. The last weeks had been so enjoyable. She loved Richmond and she would always remember it as the place in which she had known the greatest happiness of her life.
She brightened when she thought of Buckingham House. That was not so bad. Too near St James’s, of course, but far more pleasant than that grim old palace which she had always thought looked like a prison.
‘There is the new house …’ she began.
But George shook his head. ‘It will not be ready. You must tell your women to prepare for the journey back to St James’s. And I think we should not delay it.’
Charlotte protested, but George waved her objections aside.
George was growing very stubborn, and although he might be persuaded to change his mind about certain matters by Lord Bute and his mother, Charlotte had never had the power to persuade him:
He let her talk while he sipped his tea.
Then he said as though she had not mentioned her dislike of the place: ‘So, my dear, pray tell your women. We should leave this week, I think.’
So there was nothing she could do but obey. It was not important, she told herself. Soon she would have her baby and she would bring the child to Richmond.
She longed for the child. She wanted to write home and tell them what it was like when one was about to become a mother.
But that would be too cruel … for poor Christina.
So Charlotte meekly told her women to prepare and in a short time she was installed in that grim old palace of St James’s, there to await the desired event.
*
The morning of 11 August dawned bright and warm; and it was very clear to all those surrounding the Queen that she was on the point of giving birth.
Schwellenburg, who had quickly forgotten her injunctions to behave with less arrogance, was in command and bullying poor Haggerdorn until she did not know which way to turn.
‘Summon all the ladies,’ she commanded, ‘for the Queen’s time is near.’
Haggerdorn did as she was bid and a feeling of excitement ran all through the Palace. Crowds had begun to collect in the streets. This was the King’s first child and if it were a boy he would be Prince of Wales; even if it were a girl there would be reason for rejoicing, for it was a very good sign that the Queen had so quickly shown that she could bear children; and there had been no alarms during her pregnancy either. Everything seemed well and normal. Married in September 1761; having her first child August 1762. Who could do better than that? Who could rival such promptitude?
Soon the Princess Dowager’s carriage was seen driving to St James’s. On this day the people were kinder to her and gave her a cold silence. There were no reminders of the immoral life they liked to tell her she lived. Even Lord Bute’s carriage was allowed to pass in silence.
No rancour at the time of a royal birth.
The ministers of the cabinet began to arrive: Egremont, Devonshire, George Grenville, Halifax and the rest. Then came the Archbishop of Canterbury and during the morning the excitement mounted.
The ladies of the bedchamber, all together in an anteroom, were not permitted to enter the bedchamber, much to the disgust of Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg. Even the ministers were not allowed in; the Archbishop of Canterbury alone enjoyed this privilege.
In another part of the Palace George waited. He was anxious; hating the thought of pain he was praying that Charlotte would be quickly delivered; he was thanking God for giving him a fertile wife; and he asked that the child should be a boy.
‘Although,’ he hastened to add, ‘the sex of this one is not so very important. Let Charlotte come through well and the child be healthy and I shall ask nothing more of this occasion.’
How long the waiting was! George remembered when Hannah’s children were born. He had not suffered in the same way because he had not known the precise time of her travail.
He must stop himself thinking of Hannah. Hannah was dead. ‘Dead, dead,’ he repeated. And the mischievous voice which he heard now and then in his head whispered: ‘Is she, George? Are you sure of it?’
‘Hannah is dead,’ he repeated. ‘The children are well cared for. Hannah is dead … dead.’
‘You are too vehement, George,’ said the voice. ‘And if she were not dead …’
‘Hannah is dead,’ he whispered.
All through that day the tension was rising. George did not go to bed, and it was in the early hours of the morning that one of the women had come to tell him that the Queen’s pains were becoming more frequent.
‘It can be any time now, Sire.’
Any time. He looked at his watch. Four o’clock. It could be in a matter of minutes; it could be hours.
And all this time he must wait. He must think of Charlotte. Charlotte was the important one now. He would not think of anyone but Charlotte.
He prayed that Lord Cantelupe would soon be with him, for it was that noble gentleman’s duty as Vice Chamberlain to the Queen to bring him the message that the child was born. He would be well rewarded – five hundred pounds for a girl, one thousand pounds for a boy. All part of a Vice Chamberlain’s perquisites.
Let it be soon.
*
Charlotte lay exhausted on her bed.
How long? she prayed. It had seemed to go on for so many hours.
‘What is the time?’ she whispered.
‘It won’t be long now,’ was the soothing answer.
Someone whispered to her that it was nearly seven o’clock.
Seven o’clock and it was three when the pains had begun to be violent.
She would not cry out; she felt she must prevent that at all costs. In the ante-room her ladies would be listening, waiting for the cry of the child.
She pictured them whispering together – Miss Chudleigh, the Marchioness, Miss Pascal, Miss Vernon and of course Schwellenburg and poor Haggerdorn.
Oh, no, they must not hear her cry out. At a royal birth there must only be rejoicing. No one must remember the pain.
Soon, she told herself, my child will be born.
And she steeled herself to bear the agony.
*
The cry of a child. And followed by a buzz of excitement that seemed to run right through the palace.
‘The child is born. Girl or boy?’
Someone said it was a girl; and Lord Huntingdon who could not wait for Lord Cantelupe, whose prerogative it was to deliver the message, ran to the King’s apartment to tell him he was the father of a fine daughter.
‘And the Queen?’ asked George with tears in his eyes.
‘That I did not discover,’ Huntingdon told him.
George replied: ‘I am but little anxious as to the sex of the child as long as the Queen is safe.’
He waited for no more but went with all haste to the lying-in chamber where Charlotte’s accoucheur Mr Hunter (for she had insisted that she be attended by this man instead of an ordinary midwife) greeted the King with the news that he was the father of a strong, large and pretty boy.
‘Boy! But I was told a girl.’
‘Your Majesty may see for yourself. You cannot doubt the sex of the child.’
And there he was, a screaming healthy boy – perfect in every way.
The King wept unashamedly and so did everyone else in the bedchamber; then he went to the bed where Charlotte smiled up at him.
‘We have a son,’ she said.
And he knelt, and taking her hand kissed it.
*
London was wild with joy. Married less than a year and already a healthy son. This was a good augury.
Now there would be a christening – balls, fêtes, thanksgiving services. After all wasn’t the child the Prince of Wales? All over the City the bells were ringing and guns were firing the salute.
‘It’s a boy,’ people called to each other from their windows, in the streets, to the craft on the river. ‘A good strong healthy boy.’
The
y were always on the look out for omens and it so happened that a captured ship, the Hermione, had been brought up the Thames that day; it contained gold which was being taken to the vaults of the Bank of England, and through the crowds of people – rejoicing in the birth of the heir to the throne – trundled the bullion-laden carts.
‘Gold!’ cried the people. ‘Captured gold to enrich the nation! On the day he is born, it is taken to the bank. If there was ever a sign this is it.’
They said the baby had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth.
*
The baby was to be named George Augustus Frederick, and the ceremonial baptism was fixed to take place a fortnight after his birth. There were no qualms about this child; he screamed lustily, demanded his food with an arrogance which his doting mother called royal, and showed everyone that he had a firm footing on life.
When so many royal infants were delicate this was a blessing Charlotte never ceased to be grateful for. In fact she thought of nothing but her little prince.
The people clustered round St James’s demanding news of his progress; when he was carried on to the balcony they went wild with joy. The most popular person in the kingdom was the little Prince of Wales and next to him his parents for producing him.
Now, thought Charlotte, I know what it is to be completely happy. All the weary months of waiting were forgotten when she held this child in her arms. Her first thoughts on waking were for him. She could not wait for his nurses to bring him to her. She must go to him; she must look into that pink face and assure herself that all was well with him.
George shared her delight. This little boy was constantly in his thoughts. This pink bawling infant would one day be the King. George solemnly vowed that he would do all in his power to leave him a kingdom of which he could be truly proud.
The discontent which had been raging through the City since the dismissal of Pitt was overshadowed by the joy in the royal birth. When the Prince of Wales was taken into Hyde Park for an airing crowds followed him and his nurses, and they laughed with pleasure when he showed them what a fine pair of lungs he had or lay smiling complacently on his satin pillows.
‘God bless him,’ they cried. ‘He’s a lusty, jolly young dog and no mistake.’
