The Third George: (Georgian Series)

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘I will speak to North,’ George was saying. ‘We cannot allow these people to forget that their queen is our sister. She must be treated with the respect due to the Crown.’

  The Princess Dowager nodded, and George noticed her list-lessness for the first time. She was different; in the spring light her face looked sallow and ravaged.

  ‘You are ill,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘No … no … no,’ she protested.

  ‘This has upset you, I fear.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. Let it go at that. She was not going to admit to George how ill she was. She was going on fighting to the end.

  *

  The news from Denmark was bad. There were strong opinions there that the Queen deserved the same fate as Struensee, so why should she not suffer it?

  The Danish ambassador faced the King and his ministers. He should not forget, they reminded him, that the Queen of Denmark was an English princess.

  ‘My government would never tolerate the execution of an English princess,’ said the King.

  The answer came from the Danish Court that they would settle their own affairs without help from England; and as a result a squadron was ordered to sail for Denmark.

  Now the Danes were alarmed and just as diplomatic relations between the two countries were about to be broken off, they expressed a change of attitude. The Queen should be divorced; they would not take her life, but she should be exiled from Denmark.

  The squadron was not sent to Denmark; but the position demanded some action; therefore two frigates and a sloop were ordered to Elsinore to make sure that the Queen was allowed to leave Denmark in safety.

  George had discussed the affair at great length with his mother. Caroline Matilda had been guilty of adultery; they must remember that. They could not blame the Danish Government entirely for its treatment of her. She had admitted that Struensee had been her lover; he had paid the price; they must hot demand a free pardon for Caroline Matilda merely because she was an English princess. But they would remember that she was the King’s sister; therefore the Navy must make this gesture to the Danes that they might not forget the exalted rank of the English princess.

  The Danes had no wish for trouble with England. All they wanted was to be rid of Caroline Matilda. It was enough that she was divorced and exiled – although the British ambassador did succeed in getting her a pension of about £5000 a year.

  *

  So it was goodbye to Denmark. Caroline Matilda was weeping bitterly. Not that she cared to leave this land in which she had known such tempestuous years. She despised her husband; she had been disappointed in her lover; and all that was left to her was her children. And this was her punishment; she was to be parted from them.

  Frederick! Louisa! They were no longer hers. They belonged to the state of Denmark. And she was to be exiled – by a freak of fortune – in the castle of Celle.

  It was at Celle that her great-grandmother, Sophia Dorothea the tragic Queen of George I, had lived her happy childhood; and poor Sophia Dorothea’s life had run on similar lines to that of Caroline Matilda, for married to the coarse and inconsiderate George I, she had taken a lover, been discovered, her lover had been brutally murdered, her children taken from her, and she exiled to spend the rest of her life in solitude.

  She remained in exile for more than twenty years, I believe, thought Caroline Matilda. I pray it will not be so long for me.

  And so ended Caroline Matilda’s life in Denmark, as, her children taken from her, her lover lost to her for ever, she made her journey towards Celle.

  The Princess Dowager Takes her Leave

  THE FAMILY TROUBLES were not over. It was hardly likely that Cumberland would learn his lesson; no sooner had the Grosvenor scandal died down than he came to his brother in a mood of something between contrition and truculence and told him that he had something of importance to tell him.

  ‘You will hear of it sooner or later,’ he told George, ‘and I would rather you heard it first from my own lips.’

  George’s spirits sank. He could see from his brother’s expression that it would be something which would not please him.

  ‘You’d better tell, eh?’

  ‘I … I am married.’

  ‘Married,’ spluttered George. ‘But … but it’s impossible. How … can that be?’

  ‘Your Majesty should know. You take your oath before the priest and …’

  Cumberland was looking sly, reminding George of that ceremony he had underg9ne with Hannah Lightfoot.

  George said: ‘You had better tell me the worst.’

  ‘She’s beautiful. I would have made her my mistress but she would have none of that. Marriage or nothing … so it was marriage.’

  ‘Who is she?’ asked George.

  ‘Mrs Horton. You’ve heard of her. There’s been plenty of scandal about us. Widow of a Derbyshire squire. Lord Irnham’s daughter.’

  ‘But this is … impossible. You cannot marry a woman like that!’

  ‘I have, brother. That’s what I’m telling you. It is possible … because it has been done.’

  ‘You … idiot.’

  ‘I thought you would say that.’

  George remembered hearing the gossip. The lady with the eyelashes a yard long. And his brother was a fool. One would have thought that having been caught over Grosvenor’s wife he would have been more careful. But no. North had provided the £13,000 damages for that affair … and as soon as it was settled, this young idiot had gone off and committed another piece of folly. Would he never learn?

  George was really angry. He thought how he had sacrificed lovely Sarah Lennox for plain Charlotte because he thought it was his duty – and here was his brother living with no restraint whatsoever, becoming involved in one scandal and then plunging straight into the next.

  He said: ‘I … I will not receive her … nor you. You understand. Eh? What?’

  Cumberland lifted his shoulders and accepted his dismissal.

  Old George wouldn’t keep it up, he knew. He was too goodhearted and he hated quarrels. He’d give way in time just as he had over the Grosvenor case.

  *

  The Princess Dowager asked the King to come and see her. She did not feel equal to making the journey to him, but she did not wish him to know it.

  She was very worried about her family. Her sons were wild; there was no doubt about that. Her daughter Augusta was very dissatisfied with her life in Brunswick and what Augusta’s daughter would grow up like she dared not think. It must be a very strange household with her father paying more attention to his mistress than to her mother; and how would proud Augusta react to that? And then Caroline Matilda – whose case was the worst of all and did not bear thinking of.

  And now this news about Henry Frederick. Oh, what a fool. Women would be his downfall; and now he had been caught by this siren with the long eyelashes. How like him to be caught by eyelashes. He was without sense and without dignity.

  She heard that he was extremely coarse; his only cultural interest being in music. But the whole family shared that interest. And now … this disastrous marriage.

  When the King came to her she seated herself with her back to the light that he might not see the ravages pain had made on her face.

  George was too indignant about this new turn in the family’s affairs to notice.

  He said: ‘You wished to speak about Henry Frederick I don’t doubt, Mother, eh?’

  ‘It’s a sorry business.’

  ‘I won’t receive them.’

  ‘That can’t undo the mischief; and perhaps it is not wise …’

  George’s mouth was set along the stubborn lines with which she had now become familiar.

  ‘I shall not receive them,’ he said; and she knew that that was an end of the matter.

  She tried again though. ‘Family quarrels never did any good. In the last two reigns they were disastrous to the family and made it a laughing stock to the people. We do not wish that.’

  �
��True,’ agreed the King, ‘but I won’t receive them.’

  He would change, of course. He was not vindictive. She knew what it would be. The couple would not be received for a while and then all would be forgiven. But it was no use telling George that in his present mood.

  She changed the subject. ‘George, there should be some provision against this sort of thing.’

  ‘What provision could we take?’

  ‘You could make a law that royal persons would not be allowed to marry without the sovereign’s consent.’

  ‘Ha! They would marry without it. Can you imagine Henry Frederick coming to me to ask my permission? Eh? What? No. He would marry first and tell me afterwards. That is the respect I get from my brothers.’

  ‘What I mean is, George, that you could pass some Marriage Act. Then if any one of the family married without your consent the marriage would be invalid.’

  ‘The Parliament would never pass such a law.’

  ‘I think you should consider it, George.’

  But his mouth was set.

  ‘The Parliament would not have it,’ he said.

  And she felt the pain beginning to nag and when that happened she had no power to do anything, but will it to leave her.

  *

  The change in the Princess Dowager was now so apparent that she could no longer hide it.

  ‘I fear,’ said George, ‘that this scandal of the Grosvenors and Caroline Matilda’s tragedy has upset you far more than anything ever has before, eh?’

  ‘I fear it has,’ replied the Princess Dowager, ready to admit anything but that her illness had a physical cause.

  Lord Bute came to see her; he was distressed at the change in her, and implored her to see the doctors.

  ‘My dear,’ she answered. ‘Of what use? I have nothing of which to complain. I am well enough really. It is just these family troubles.’

  ‘My dearest,’ replied Bute, ‘you should see the physicians. There might be something they could do.’

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I shall be all right very soon. It is just these family scandals. I have allowed them to affect me too deeply.’

  It was useless to try to persuade her. She had made up her mind.

  When she was alone, she looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see this nagging burning thing which was in her throat.

  She thought of her husband’s mother – her indomitable mother-in-law Queen Caroline – who had been afflicted with an internal rupture which she thought indelicate and had suffered in silence even as she, Augusta, was suffering now, while she declared to the world that there was nothing wrong with her and refused to see the doctors.

  She hated illness, just as Queen Caroline had done, and she would not recognize its existence.

  *

  But there came the day when it could no longer be hidden. She lay on her bed unable to protest and they brought the doctors to her. They quickly discovered the Thing in her throat and they gave their grave verdict to the King.

  ‘A cancer in the throat, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And there is hope … eh? What?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty. There is nothing that can be done. Her Highness cannot have many more weeks left to her.’

  George was heartbroken. His family feeling had always been strong; and from his childhood she had been there to guide him. Even now he would hear her strong voice breaking in on his dreams: ‘George, be a king.’

  ‘Everything that I am I owe to her,’ he told Charlotte, and Charlotte, good wife that she was, wept with him.

  Lord Bute and the King were close again in a shared grief. Bute had been wrong; he had been immoral, but he had loved the Princess. He had been as a husband to her and her happiness had been centred on him. At such a time one could not allow one’s respectability to intrude on one’s deeper feelings.

  ‘I cannot believe that she will leave us,’ cried the King. ‘How can anything be the same without her?’

  When she received visitors, the Princess still went through a pretence that there was nothing seriously wrong with her.

  The phrase: ‘When I am well …’ was constantly on her lips. But they knew – and so did she – that she never would be well.

  She brooded about those two men whom she would leave behind her and who she believed would suffer through her absence. Bute – he would grieve for her; but Miss Vansittart would comfort him; and he had his family and Lady Bute was a good sensible woman. He would not be left entirely alone.

  And George? George was a fully-grown king now and he no longer confided in his mother. George had his advisers and how often they advised him to folly! But she should not grieve too much at leaving George for he did not take counsel with her now.

  Charlotte? She felt guilty about Charlotte. Charlotte might have been a help to her husband. She was not a stupid woman. But she never would now. She herself and dear Lord Bute had decided what position Charlotte should occupy about the King when she first arrived in England and they – and her constant childbearing – had made it impossible for her to influence him in the smallest way. So now he stood alone – among his ministers. George, who was growing more and more aware of state affairs; George who saw himself as the King who would rule his country; who was developing a growing obstinacy; who believed that he knew best.

  Trouble, trouble, thought the Princess Augusta. The family growing up and causing scandal. There were whisperings about her sons and she did not know how true the stories were – nor would she now. But she did foresee trouble with the family who seemed to have a genius for getting into it although they had a genius for nothing else. Trouble, she thought. But I shall not be here. It was all round the throne. It was brewing in America. Was George strong enough to hold it off? Was North strong enough to guide him? She did not know. All she knew was that she would not be there to see.

  *

  Her women dressed her to receive the King and the Queen. Perhaps, she thought, the last time. Another presentiment that the end was near. The pain in her throat was almost unendurable.

  ‘Let me not betray it to them,’ she prayed.

  Her women came in to tell her that the King and Queen had already arrived. She was astonished. It was so unlike George to be either too early or late. He was almost as precise about time as his grandfather had been.

  George came in, took her hand and kissed it fervently.

  ‘You are early, George, my dearest son.’

  ‘I mistook the time,’ lied George. He thought: She is dying and she will not admit it. Oh, my brave mother who has lived for me.

  The Princess Dowager embraced Charlotte more warmly than usual.

  Poor Charlotte, who had been shut out deliberately. It was a mistake, thought the Princess. Did I think that I was immortal, that I would go on forever, so that he had no need of someone to take my place?

  She sat bolt upright on her chair trying to concentrate on what they were saying.

  And George sat beside her, a pain in his heart because he knew he was going to lose her and that this could well be the last time they sat together like this.

  He could have wept, but he knew that, would distress her; and he wanted to tell her that he loved her, that she was his dearest mother and he would never forget her care for him.

  But he dared not say these things for she would not wish it; and how much more painful it was to sit there beside her pretending that all was well.

  *

  When her son and daughter-in-law had left her the Princess Dowager collapsed on to her bed.

  I cannot lie to them much longer, she thought.

  She was right. She could not hold off the doctors now. She was too ill for pretence.

  She was aware of the King at her bedside; she saw his eyes wide with grief, his lips twitch with emotion.

  ‘Farewell, my good son George,’ whispered the Princess Dowager.

  ‘Oh, dearest and best of mothers …’ answered George. He turned in despair to the doctors. ‘Is there nothing … noth
ing that can be done, eh? Nothing … nothing. Eh? What?’

  The doctors shook their heads.

  There was nothing.

  Gloucester’s Secret Marriage

  GEORGE COULD NOT now find solace even at Kew. He missed his mother deeply and he thought of her constantly. He felt that all his brothers and sisters were alien to him; and he was a sentimental man; he had wanted to believe they were such a happy family. He could not bear to think of Caroline Matilda, virtually a prisoner in exile, her punishment for entering into an adulterous intrigue which she made no attempt to deny. Indeed how could she, with the evidence against her? And this was his little sister. The news from Brunswick was sordid and unpleasant, although he believed his sister Augusta made the best of it and at least did not add to his humiliation by undignified conduct. But he had never loved Augusta; that year of seniority had always been between them. When they were young she had bullied him; and when they were older had shown her resentment because although she was the first born he was the boy. And now Cumberland’s disgraceful marriage. And as for William, Duke of Gloucester, the only other brother left to him, there were whispers about his life to which George assiduously closed his eyes.

  Charlotte was a comfort. She never caused him the slightest scandal. There she was calmly in the background, sewing, praying, living the quiet domestic life and being – he had to admit it – excessively dull. Not that she should ever know that he thought that. Not that he would betray by a look that he thought often of Sarah Lennox and wanted to hear all about the scandal she was creating, bearing another man’s child and running off and leaving her husband. She had now left her lover and was, he heard, living quietly at Goodwood House under the protection of her brother, the Duke of Richmond. Sometimes he imagined that Richmond blamed him for what had happened to Sarah. There were often times when he thought Richmond went out of his way to plague him. But he felt that about many people. Yet occasionally there were times, though he felt well and his mind was lively, when he was a little afraid of that persecution mania which had been with him so strongly at the time of that fearful illness, on which even now he did not like to dwell.