by Jean Plaidy
‘I believe not, sir,’ replied Mrs Delany. ‘At least she has not told me if she does.’
The King laughed slyly. ‘Ah, that’s nothing. She’s apt not to tell. She never does tell, you know. Her father once talked to me about her book.’ He moved towards Fanny and studied her intently. ‘But what? What?’ he went on. ‘How was it?’
He was speaking so quickly that Fanny, unaccustomed to his manners, did not understand the question.
‘Sir?’ she began.
‘How came it about, eh? What?’
‘I wrote it for my own amusement, sir.’
‘But publishing it … printing it … eh? What? How was that, eh? What?’
‘Well, sir, that was because …’
For the life of her Fanny could not think of the answer to his question. But the King was not a man to give up. He was very interested in detail; and he wanted to know why Fanny had published her book if she had written merely for her own amusement, just as he had wanted to know how Mrs Delany did her mosaics.
‘I thought, sir, that … er … it would look well in print.’
The King laughed; he walked over to Mrs Delany. ‘That’s fair,’ he said. ‘Very fair and honest.’
He stood at some distance looking at Fanny; every now and then laughing and saying ‘Yes, very fair and honest.’
The Queen arrived to see dear Mrs Delany and to talk to her about the treatment the Princess Elizabeth was having.
She was delighted, too, to see the famous Miss Burney, and was gracious when Fanny was presented. Fanny was invited to sit beside her and the King came and joined them. He told the Queen that Miss Burney had had her book printed because she thought it would look well in print. And he laughed again.
They talked of literature for Fanny’s benefit and behaved with such courtesy towards her that she was charmed. As she began to grow used to the King’s unusual ways of speaking it was easier for her to understand and to know when the ‘ehs’ and ‘whats’ demanded an answer.
‘Shakespeare,’ said the King. ‘Was there ever such stuff as a great part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so. But what do you think, eh? What? Is it not sad stuff, eh? What?’
Poor Fanny. How could one writer deny the greatest of her kind. And yet how could she argue with the King. This unfortunately was one of the questions which demanded an answer.
‘Oh yes, sir,’ she said, ‘though mixed with such excellencies that …’
The King burst into laughter. He found Fanny very amusing. ‘Of course it is not to be said. But it’s true, eh? Only it’s Shakespeare and nobody dare abuse him. Some of those characters of his. Poof. Stuff. Sad stuff. But one would be stoned for saying so.’
Everyone seemed to be very happy and Fanny found the company of the royal pair not nearly so alarming as she had feared it might be.
The Queen was so gracious and determined to be kind; and the King clearly wanted to be pleasant.
When the royal pair had left Mrs Delany said that it was obvious to her that they had taken a liking to Fanny. This was confirmed on further visits to the little drawing room.
Shortly afterwards Fanny was offered a post in the Queen’s household as second keeper of the robes, with which she would receive a drawing room in the Queen’s Lodge at Windsor with a bedroom opening from it, a footman of her own, together with an allowance of two hundred pounds a year.
Fanny was uneasy. It was no part of her ambition to become a royal servant. But having become acquainted with the King and Queen in such an intimate and friendly manner through Mrs Delany, it was very difficult to refuse.
So she accepted and in a short time was installed in Charlotte’s household.
*
Madame Schwellenburg quickly resented the newcomer who was clearly specially favoured by the Queen. Schwellenburg would grumble to herself about people who were sent in and who had no idea how to wait on a Queen. Fanny disliked the old woman and told herself that if she was sent away she did not greatly care, except that she was growing fond of the Queen and every day felt a great desire to serve her.
Charlotte sensed this and liked to have Fanny near her; she was considerate and made a point of not giving her any tasks that she might not be able to perform until she had watched others do them; and she made a point of dismissing Fanny when her hair was powdered in case Fanny’s dress should be spoilt.
Fanny would stand waiting for her duties to be pointed out to her while the Queen read the papers. This was usually during the crimping and craping of her hair. Being aware of Fanny and her literary tastes the Queen would read out a paragraph or two for her benefit.
This Fanny found endearing; and although she had to admit that the Queen was not beautiful and did lack a certain grace and was inclined to be imperious in her own household and was mean almost to stinginess, she was kind and Fanny was soon adoring her.
She began to settle in happily apart from skirmishes with Schwellenburg who found fault with everything she did and, in fact, seemed to care for nothing but her position in the Queen’s household and two horrible little frogs which she kept as pets. She was an inveterate card player and insisted on Fanny’s playing with her, for she implied that one of the newcomer’s duties was to amuse her. She despised novel-writing and told Fanny so in her unique English which always made Fanny laugh. ‘You lauf Miss Berners,’ she said. ‘Very well. I vill not to you talk. But I talk to selfs.’
Fanny enjoyed visiting Mrs Delany and telling her of life at Court.
*
It was the Princess Amelia’s fourth birthday and Mrs Delany had told Fanny that she was going to take advantage of the old custom of paying her respects and asked Fanny to accompany her.
As it was her birthday the little Princess was to parade on the castle terrace and there receive the homage of those who had called to give it. She looked very charming in a robe-coat which was covered with the finest muslin; she wore white gloves and carried a fan; on her golden head was a tightly fitting cap; she looked charmingly and incongruously grown up and was clearly delighted with herself. The King could not take his eyes from her. They were filled with tears as he watched the delightful creature parade between the spectators turning her head to smile and acknowledge the acclaim.
The Queen and the Princess were present, and when the little girl reached Mrs Delany she stopped to smile at her and speak with her. ‘You haven’t brought your niece,’ she said. ‘I wish you had.’
Then she saw Fanny and looked up at her.
Fanny stooped to the child and said: ‘Your Royal Highness doesn’t remember me.’
The Princess laughed and put out her lips, indicating that she wished to kiss Fanny. Receiving the kiss Fanny blushed, wondering whether this was a seemly thing to do in public.
The Princess had seen her fan and took it. She examined it with interest. Then she gave it back to Fanny. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘a brown fan!’
The King who had come up to see why his daughter was delaying told her to curtsey to Mrs Delany, which the child did with the utmost charm.
George, watching her, told himself that this beloved child made up for everything. He could never be entirely unhappy while he had her.
The King’s Affliction
LIFE CHANGED ABRUPTLY at Windsor.
It was April when Mrs Delany became ill. She was eighty-eight years old and the outcome could not be unexpected.
Her death threw the King into a mood of melancholy which was not improved by the news that the Prince of Wales was heavily in debt and that he was losing thousands of pounds at the gaming tables; there was a great deal of talk about his marriage to Maria Fitzherbert and Fox had denied in the House of Commons that the marriage had taken place.
Another factor which disturbed him was that some time before when he was at St James’s a woman had stepped out of the crowd and tried to stab him. She was proved to be a certain Margaret Nicholson who was mad; but George could not forget the incident; and soon after the death of Mrs Delany he beg
an to suffer from bilious attacks and the rash, which he had had once before on his chest, broke out again.
Charlotte noticed that his speech was becoming more and more rapid and was punctuated more liberally with ehs and whats, and now he did not wait for the answers. He was taking the most violent exercise, and when the Queen timidly suggested that perhaps he was driving himself too hard he cried out in some excitement: ‘Can’t get fat. Abhor obesity. It’s a family characteristic. It has to be avoided. Can’t avoid it by overeating and taking no exercise, eh?’
In June, Sir George Baker, his physician, suggested the King go for a month to Cheltenham.
‘Your Majesty could take the waters which would be beneficial to your state. And another point if you were absent from London, long audiences and other tedious ceremonies could be avoided.’
The King was loath to go. A sense of duty kept him in London until July and then as it was clear that his health was not improving he agreed to go to Cheltenham if the Queen and the Princesses went with him.
He stayed for a month and then when it became clear that neither the waters nor the rest from state duties was improving his health he decided to return.
He shook his head sadly and said: ‘I have, all at once, become an old man.’
*
He felt a little better to be back at Kew. He was always happier there than anywhere else. He liked to walk in the gardens and look at the children’s house and call in on them and play a few games with his darling Amelia.
In spite of his ill-health he insisted on taking exercise and his servants were greatly shocked when one day out walking he was caught in a heavy shower of rain and did not return immediately but went on walking. When he came back and took off his boots, the water poured out of them.
‘Fresh air! Rain! Never hurt anyone, eh?’ was his comment.
A few days later he was caught in the wet again and as he was due to go to St James’s to attend a levee he did not bother to change his boots and stockings. When he came back to Kew it was obvious that he had caught a chill.
The Queen scolded him and told him she would herself prepare a cordial and when he had drunk it he should retire to bed immediately.
He wanted no cordial, he replied. He didn’t believe in cordials. Vegetables, fruit, cold water. They were the best healers. He ate a pear and drank a glass of cold water.
It was one o’clock in the morning when he was seized with cramp in the stomach. So agonizing was the pain that he awakened the Queen.
She was terrified, for she thought he was dying, and leaping out of bed ran into the corridor in her night shift to the acute embarrassment of the pages. But they immediately realized the urgency and as the doctors were not at Kew they called in a nearby apothecary.
The King was having a fit, said the apothecary; and tried to administer a cordial.
The King had regained a little of his senses and refused the cordial, but the Queen begged the apothecary to administer it in some way in spite of the King’s protests, and with the help of the pages the liquid was forced down George’s throat.
In a short time the fit subsided and he lay quietly in his bed.
*
There was no doubt now that the King was seriously ill and the malady had taken an alarming turn, for the King talked incessantly and at great speed, and at times it was not very clear what he meant; his mind seemed to dart from one subject to another and before saying what he wished to about one he would be on to the next.
A few days after the fit in the night he went to church with the Queen and the Princesses and while the sermon was being delivered he suddenly rose in his seat and started to embrace the Queen and the Princesses.
‘You know what it is to be nervous,’ he cried.
The Queen was terrified; in fact she was growing more and more alarmed every day. She did her best to calm him.
‘Please, George we are in church … church, do you understand?’
The helpless manner in which he looked about him made her want to weep; but he allowed her to take his hand and force him back into his seat.
Thank God, she thought, that the wall of the pew was high enough to prevent their being seen by the rest of the congregation.
They went quietly back to the Palace and she persuaded him to rest in his room.
This could not go on. The doctors must decide what ailed the King, but deep in the Queen’s heart was a fear which had been with her ever since his derangement all those years ago.
‘He recovered from that,’ she told herself. ‘He will recover from this.’
A few days later the King went to a concert and when he returned he grasped the Queen’s arm and said to her, ‘The music seemed to affect my head. I could scarcely hear it.’
‘It is because you are not well. When you are well you will enjoy music as much as you ever did.’
He looked at her in a wild, almost unrecognizing manner. ‘Shall I, Charlotte?’ he said. ‘Shall I?’
‘But of course. The doctors are going to cure you.’
‘Of what?’ he whispered.
She did not answer; she could not look at him; but he gripped her arm fiercely and cried: ‘Tell me of what, Charlotte. Tell me of what?’
She looked up at him bravely. ‘Of your illness,’ she answered.
Then he released her and turning his head away burst into tears.
‘I wish to God I may die,’ he said, ‘for I am going mad.’
*
What can I do? Charlotte asked herself. How could she keep this distressing illness from becoming public knowledge?
She thought of the Prince of Wales who for so long had despised his father. What would he be feeling now? He had disappointed them; the charming child of the nursery had become the gay young man about town. He was all that his parents were not; he was becoming known as the First Gentleman of Europe; and although she knew he was so wild – and perhaps wicked – she could not help loving him and … yes, admiring him.
What would he do now?
The King came bursting into her apartments. All his movements were violent and he seemed in a desperate hurry.
‘Ah, Charlotte … here we are! Fresh air, Charlotte. It’s good for you. Must have it, eh? What? Are you ready? Come on … a five-mile walk. Good for you. Mustn’t get fat. Too much fat in the family, eh? What?’
She remonstrated with him. Was he not taking too much exercise? Did the doctors not say he should go more slowly? What about a drive? That would be better. They could go farther afield.
He did not seem to be listening, but when she led him to the carriage he got in without a word. She sat down beside him and let him talk of the beauties of the countryside. And how he talked. He talked of farms, of button-making, of Mrs Delany’s paper mosaics, pleasant subjects like the Princess Amelia and unpleasant ones like the Prince of Wales.
Suddenly the King shouted to the driver to stop.
The carriage came to rest by an oak tree. The King alighted, bowed to the oak, approached it with great dignity and shook one of the lower branches. For some seconds he stood there talking as though to the tree; and watching, being aware of the driver and the footman looking on, Charlotte felt a great fear and depression sweep over her.
After a while the King bowed, shook the oak branch again and took his seat in the carriage.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I have put our case clearly to the King of Prussia.’
*
There were rumours throughout the Court and the City.
What is happening to the King? Is it true that his mind is deranged?
The Prince of Wales consulted with his friend what this would mean. A Regency? With the Prince in command. And it seemed very desirable to them all.
The Prince of Wales came to Kew to see for himself if the rumours were true.
He was astonished at the sight of his father who had changed considerably in the last few months. He had been right when he had said that suddenly he had become an old man.
> He received the Prince with dignity and made no reference to their disagreements. The Queen was on the verge of hysteria; she feared the King would become violent. She could not much longer, she knew, keep his state from the attendants; and she lived in terror of what he would do next.
It was inevitable that the Prince of Wales who had given him so much cause for that anxiety which had without doubt hastened him to his present condition should bring affairs to a climax.
During dinner the King suddenly began shouting at his son, talking fast and incoherently, but it was obvious that he was abusing him as he rose from his place and went to where his son was sitting.
He began to shout at him and the Prince of Wales, rising in his chair, touched his arm gently and said: ‘Father, I beg of you lower your voice.’
The King was seized with a sudden fury against his son. He took him by the throat and throwing him against the wall appeared to be about to strangle him.
‘Who shall dare tell the King of England he shall not speak out, eh? What? Tell me that? Tell me that? Tell me that?’
The footmen rushed forward to rescue the Prince; the Princesses rose to their feet, all colour drained from their faces; the Queen sat clenching and unclenching her hands, her lips tightly pressed together as she forced herself not to scream out that she could endure no more.
Colonel Digby, Charlotte’s Chamberlain, bowed to the King who was struggling to free himself from the footmen and suggested that he allow him to conduct him to bed.
‘Don’t dare touch me, sir,’ screamed the King. ‘I will not go. Who are you?’
‘I am Colonel Digby, sir,’ was the calm reply. ‘Your Majesty has been very good to me often and now I am going to be good to you, for you must come to bed. It is necessary to your life.’
The King was so struck by this speech that he grew silent. Tears filled his eyes as Colonel Digby, taking him by the arm, led him away.
The Prince of Wales was almost fainting and his eldest sisters hurried to bathe his forehead with Hungary water.
The Queen said to two of her women: ‘Pray conduct me to my apartments.’
