by Jean Plaidy
*
The Princess was stunned.
‘This is terrible,’ she cried. ‘George … deranged … and the Prince not yet three years old. Leave me. I will see you later. I must think about this.’
And as soon as she was alone she sent an urgent message to Lord Bute.
He came at once, and she told him what the doctors had told her.
‘He has been acting strangely lately. What does Charlotte say?’
‘Charlotte does not know. The news was brought to me and I have given orders that she shall not be told.’
‘But she is the Queen.’
The Princess shrugged her shoulders. ‘It is better that she does not know, until we have decided what should be done. I have said that because of her condition it is better for her to be told that the King is suffering from a chill and a fever and no one but his doctors must be with him for fear it is contagious.’
Bute was struck by her calm. She did not waste time on sympathy for the King. She was immediately planning what effect his illness would have on the Crown, and who would be at hand to become the power in the land. The Princess Dowager was determined that she should be the one. Therefore the Queen was a menace, and the Queen should be kept in the dark.
‘I shall give orders at once,’ she said, ‘that Charlotte shall not be told the nature of his illness; moreover, I shall ensure that Charlotte does not see him.’
*
At Richmond with her children Charlotte received a message from her mother-in-law which told her that the King was suffering from a violent chill and fever. The doctors believed that the Queen should not visit him as it might be infectious and she had the child she was carrying to consider. She would be kept informed.
Charlotte thought: It is all this anxiety. The bickering ministers, the terrible lampoons about his mother and her lover. But in her heart she knew it was largely due to the Hannah Lightfoot affair.
But we are married now, she thought. And even if George and Frederick are bastards the children we have in the future will not be.
During the weeks that followed Charlotte was in a state of anxiety; at times she thought of ignoring the Princess’s orders and going to see the King to tell him not to worry. They were married now for that which had taken place under the guise of a masque was a true ceremony. She had Dr Wilmot’s assurance on it. He must forget the past; he must never go to see his son by Hannah Lightfoot; he must forget that indiscretion of his youth and all would be well.
She went to her nursery to see the children. Young George, a very handsome child, was already aware of his importance. He knew he was Prince of Wales and his nurses were indulgent to him and he had already been informed that he would one day be king.
He was so bright, so precocious, so interested in everything – a perfect boy.
‘Where is Papa?’ he asked. ‘Why does he not come to see me?’
‘He will, my darling. As soon as he is able.’
The little boy thought it strange that his father should be so dilatory in giving himself the pleasure of seeing the little Prince of Wales whom everyone adored.
Somewhere, thought Charlotte, there is another boy, who may be calling himself the Prince of Wales. But no, he would not dare! Hannah would have seen to that. She had been a sensible woman and she must have loved George to give him up as she did.
She tried to soothe herself, but as the weeks passed, she began to feel apprehensive about the nature of George’s illness since she was not allowed to see him.
*
The King’s health improved and Charlotte was with him again. She was shocked by the change in him. His youth had gone for ever. He had a nervous way of speaking, repeating sentences and asking impatiently ‘What? What?’ before one had time to answer.
Charlotte talked to him of the children and that comforted him to some extent. She said not a word of the masque and the ceremony through which they had gone. She determined that never again if she could help it would she mention Hannah Lightfoot’s name. Hannah was dead; Charlotte and George had been remarried – however oddly – and even though Charlotte refused to admit that that second strange ceremony had been necessary she was very relieved that it had taken place.
George suffered depressions. He believed that everyone was against him.
He wrote to Lord Bute:
Everyday I meet with some insult. I have been in a fever … My very sleep is not free from thinking of the men I daily see … Excuse the incoherency of my letters. But a mind ulcerated by the treatment it meets with from all around it is the true cause of it.
When Bute received this letter he was disturbed. In the first place the fact that George had written to him seemed to imply that he had forgotten the break in their friendship and believed himself to be back in the old days of confidence.
He talked to the Princess about it and they were very disturbed.
But during a moment of intense clarity the King decided that he might at some time become unfit to govern and that it was necessary to bring into force a Regency Bill. He consulted Blackstone the authority on law who told him that a new Act would not be necessary as the present Act dealt with all possibilities. In the event of his dying or becoming unable to govern the Princess Dowager would automatically become Regent.
George said: ‘My mother is no longer young.’ And he thought: She and Lord Bute would rule together and neither of them is capable of it. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘I wish to introduce ‘a new Regency Bill and I will name my Regent and it shall be a secret until I allow it to be known.’
Blackstone said that this was a matter for him to discuss with his ministers and the King hastily called them together to tell them of his decision.
After much discussion the Bill was passed which would empower the King, in case of his death or incapacity, to name the Regent, limiting the choice to the Queen or members of his own family.
To Charlotte life had become alarming. She was not sure what was going to happen next. The illness of the King, and his strange behaviour which continued intermittently worried her.
And she knew that in the streets there were whispers about the King’s strange malady.
But as the weeks passed he grew better; and in August in Buckingham House she gave birth to her third son. He was christened William; and as she held him against her and rejoiced in his coming she told herself that no one on earth could say he was not the legitimate son of the King and Queen of England.
The Royal Nursery
IN THE NURSERY at Kew, George reigned supreme. At four years old he was precocious, clever, bright, aware of his importance. He heard the servants whispering about the Prince of Wales and he knew it was himself.
‘One day,’ he boasted to his brother Frederick, ‘George the Prince will be the King.’
Poor Frederick tried to imagine how a boy of four could be king and wear a crown. Wouldn’t it keep slipping off his head?
‘Silly child,’ retorted George, ‘I’ll have a big head then.’
‘God help us,’ said Lady Charlotte Finch, their governess. ‘It’s big enough now.’
Young George was seen surreptitiously touching his head to see if it really was big enough to carry the crown. The servants, watching, laughed together. ‘Master George can’t wait,’ they said. ‘Not yet five and imagining himself the King already.’
But of course they all loved George and did not mind his imperious ways one little bit. He was so handsome with’ his golden hair, almost red, and his clever way of talking, for George had never talked like a baby. His big blue eyes looked serenely on the world, knowing that it was made for his benefit.
‘There is not much of his father in him,’ they said.
George enjoyed those rare days when he rode into London with his parents and the people cheered. There were always special cheers for George. He would bow and wave very solemnly because it was a duty of royalty graciously to accept the people’s acclamation; and the more what his nurses called ‘old fashioned’
he was, the more the people liked it. He enjoyed watching the guards from the windows of St James’s.
‘One, two, one, two,’ he would call to them; and they would salute or march to his orders. Everybody loved George.
‘Why,’ he asked imperiously of Lady Charlotte, ‘can’t we live at St James’s. There are no soldiers here.’
‘Kew is best for children,’ replied Lady Charlotte.
‘I am not children. I am the Prince of Wales.’
Then she would kiss him and say he was not going to let them forget that, was he?
‘Could you forget?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Not with you around, my precious.’ Then he would feel very important until she said: ‘Now eat up your dinner and no more playing about with that nice fish.’
‘I like my meat days best,’ he confided.
‘I don’t doubt it,’ replied Lady Charlotte.
‘I like meat days too,’ put in Frederick, who always liked what George liked.
‘Well, this is the menu your Papa and Mamma have arranged for you, so we must keep to that, musn’t we? – otherwise we should be disobeying the King.’
‘When I’m king I’ll eat meat every day.’
‘So shall I,’ echoed Frederick.
‘Silly. You’ll never be king.’
Frederick looked as though he was going to cry. Poor little Fred, although only a year in time separated them, George seemed to be more than that year older.
‘Never mind,’ said Lady Charlotte, ‘eat up this nice fish instead.’
Frederick allowed it to be spooned into his mouth while George looked on contemptuously.
Heavens above, thought Lady Charlotte. If this is how he is at four what’ll he be like at ten … at fifteen or eighteen when he comes of age? The King and Queen were undoubtedly right to insist that the children lived simply at Kew.
George was pushing his fish about his plate, breaking it into little bits which he told Fred were soldiers.
‘It’s fish not soldiers,’ said Lady Charlotte, ‘and to be eaten, not played with. Now eat it up or I shall have to go and see your Papa and Mamma and tell them that you are a naughty boy who won’t eat his fish.’
George looked at Lady Charlotte’s nursery gown with contempt. ‘Pray,’ he said, ‘are you well dressed enough?’
Lady Charlotte raised shocked eyes to the ceiling.
‘I should have thought,’ went on George, ‘that your gown would not be good enough to visit the King in. When I am King …’
‘Fish is to be eaten,’ said Lady Charlotte. ‘So I pray you treat it as it was meant to be treated.’
The Prince was so struck with this observation that he shovelled two mouthfuls of fish into his mouth while he considered it. Then he remarked: ‘I like meat best.’
Lady Charlotte was silent, thinking that the King was a little dogmatic about the children’s food, for he was so anxious that they should not get fat.
He would come into the nursery and say: ‘Too much weight is not good for them, eh? What? Too much fat not good for them. What?’
He had talked in this odd way since his illness, repeating his sentences and putting them in the form of questions which were not meant to be answered.
Perhaps he was right, but Lady Charlotte would not have pared all the fat from the children’s meat. Breakfast was a dish containing two thirds milk and one of tea, not very well sweetened, and toast without butter. Dinner – which was taken at three in the afternoon and supper at half past eight – consisted of soup, usually clear and never fatty, lean meat (on meat days) with clear gravy and greens. They were encouraged to eat as much of the greens as they could, and when they had fish they were not allowed butter with it. They would have fruit tart from which the pastry had been removed so that it could scarcely be called fruit tart at all. On Thursdays and Sundays they might eat an ice and choose the flavour.
It was a simple diet and if anyone questioned the wisdom of it, the King would say: ‘They look healthy on it, eh? What? Are you suggesting the Princes are not healthy, eh? What?’
And everyone had to agree that the little boys with their pink faces and bright blue eyes did indeed look healthy.
‘Now come,’ said Lady Charlotte, ‘after dinner we are going to visit the King and Queen.’
Young George was looking at her gown and she said with a laugh: ‘Have no fear. I shall change my gown.’
That seemed to content the boy and he turned his attention to the plate of fruit pie – minus piecrust – which had been placed before him.
*
Charlotte sat in the window at the Lodge waiting for the King’s return.
‘He should be here soon,’ she said to Schwellenburg in English, for she had insisted that they always speak English, because it was the only way of making any progress in that difficult language. ‘He will not wish to be late for the children.’
‘Vill not be,’ muttered Schwellenburg who showed her contempt for the language by what seemed like deliberate maltreatment.
‘I think the King is looking better,’ went on Charlotte, gazing anxiously at Schwellenburg, but that lady merely grunted.
The Queen picked up her embroidery. The illness was over, and the King was well again; only it had been distressing while it lasted. It was frightening when people one knew suddenly seemed to lose their personalities, when they gazed at you without recognition. She shivered. For a time she had thought he had lost his reason. Did he think so too? He had wanted the Regency Bill passed through afterwards, so the thought may have come into his mind.
But he is well now, she thought; even though Schwellenburg would not admit it. All was well. Three boys in the nursery and there would be more children, she was sure. How she longed for a little girl!
Next time, she promised herself; and she forgot the King’s illness. Soon it would be time for their governess to bring the two elder boys to their parents. The King would return and they would have a pleasant little family party, with young George surprising and delighting them by his precocious ways and his healthy looks.
If she could forget the King’s illness and the slyness of the Princess Dowager in trying to keep her in the dark, she could be happy.
*
The King was with the Queen when the Princes arrived with Lady Charlotte Finch.
‘Ha,’ said the King. ‘So here is my family, eh? What?’
Prince George looked at his father with solemn eyes.
‘Why do you not wear your crown, Papa?’
‘It is not to be worn when my children come to see me.’
‘But I would like to see it. I would like to wear it.’
The Queen laughed and looked at the King, who smiled. Such a precocious little fellow. They couldn’t help being proud of him.
‘Frederick wishes to say something,’ said the Queen. ‘What is it, my pet?’
‘It … it …’ began Frederick and was overcome with confusion.
Young George looked contemptuously at his brother, but Charlotte said quickly: ‘Frederick means that it is too big for your little head, George. Why, it would slip over your face and you wouldn’t be able to see a thing.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said George. ‘I’d feel.’ He stretched out his hands as though playing blind man’s buff and ran laughing round the room.
Lady Charlotte whispered to George, uneasily, and he turned and grinned at her, reminding her by a look that she had no power over him in the presence of his parents.
‘Lady Charlotte is warning you, George,’ said the King. ‘You must obey her. She is your governess, eh? What?’
‘What? What?’ cried young George and began to laugh and caper round the room still faster.
‘Lady Charlotte, I pray you bring the Prince to me,’ said the Queen.
Lady Charlotte caught the boy’s hand and he looked at her mischievously and whispered: ‘What? What?’
‘The Prince,’ said the Queen conversationally to the King, ‘is a little too fu
ll of high spirits.’
Frederick wanted to say something and was tugging at his mother’s skirts.
‘What is it, my pet?’
‘Am I?’
‘What’s that?’ asked the King.
‘What? What?’ cried young George, almost choking with laughter.
‘Tell your Papa what you mean, my dear,’ said the Queen.
‘Shall I have spirits too?’ Frederick wanted to know.
‘Yes, my dear, but not so many as George which will show that you behave better than he does.’
Young George was astonished and Frederick elated. The Queen said: ‘Now come here, George, and tell me how you are getting on with your lessons.’
George, a little subdued, wondering about his high spirits, listened to Lady Charlotte telling his mother how bright he was when he applied himself. The King listened gravely and the little boys were aware of the solemnity of the occasion.
George must work harder. He must listen to what he was told. He must obey his governess, his nurses, his mother and father, for he was after all only a little boy.
‘But Prince of Wales,’ he told them slyly.
‘Your Papa is the King and he always listens to everybody, that is why he is a good king. Are you going to be a good Prince of Wales?’
‘I’d rather be a good king,’ said the irresponsible Prince.
‘You must first be a good prince,’ the Queen told him; and listening, the King felt an emotion rising within him; she was a good mother and good wife; and there was something about her which made him wonder. Could she be pregnant again? Praise be to God, he hoped so. Being pregnant kept her contented. In between pregnancies she was inclined to meddle and that was something he would not have, loath as he was to disturb the harmony of their life. No, he liked Charlotte to remain at Kew or Richmond, away from the Court except for those ceremonies which it was imperative that she attend; then she kept her nose out of affairs and did not meddle. He couldn’t tolerate a meddling woman. Women’s mission in life was to bear children and Charlotte could do that very adequately indeed. Five years married and three boys to show and, if he were right, another child on the way. No one could complain about that. Although, thought George grimly, ‘those ministers of mine would if they had a chance.’ He had the most intransigent set of ministers that ever plagued any king. But George was beginning to think that he was capable of running the country’s affairs. He gave a great deal of thought to them and once he had come to a decision he stuck to it. He had lost that doubt of his ability; and once he made up his mind he was certain that he was right.
