Caroline the Queen

by Виктория Холт

  Walpole, returned from Houghton, whither he had taken Maria to recuperate after her illness, had now recovered from his melancholy since Maria was well again. He called on the King who received him testily in his private closet, expecting that he had come to protest about the proposed visit to Hanover. He was right.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ began Walpole, ‘a visit to Hanover will at this time be very unpopular with the country.’

  ‘If there is no visit that will be very unpopular with me,’ retorted the King.

  ‘At this time when there are disturbances on the Continent....’

  ‘In which we are not involved as you so wished,’ put in George.

  ‘In which, sir, we are most happily not involved. It is not a good moment for the visit. If it could be postponed ...’

  It has been postponed too long. There will be no more postponements.’

  ‘Parliament is about to rise,’ said Walpole. ‘There will be business to attend to. To send despatches from my home in Chelsea to St James’s or Kensington is an easy matter. To send them from London to Hanover ...’

  ‘They’ll survive the journey.’

  ‘The King of Prussia is Your Majesty’s enemy. He would seek every chance of discomfiting you. Who knows, with affairs as they now stand, he might decide to drive you out of Hanover.’

  ‘Let him try! Nothing would please me more than to show him the stuff I’m made of.’

  ‘Your Majesty would agree that for you to be involved in combat with Prussia would not be to England’s advantage.’ ‘Enough! ‘ said the King.

  ‘Your Majesty, I must point out to you ...’

  ‘Pooh and stuff! ‘ shouted the King. ‘You think to get the better of me, but you shall nod ‘

  There was nothing Walpole could do but retire.

  * * *

  He went to the Queen.

  Could she persuade the King to see reason?

  Caroline looked at him steadily and he saw that this was another occasion when she was not on his side.

  ‘He continues to talk of Hanover,’ she said. ‘He will go on fretting and fuming until he has what he wants.’

  ‘Madam, the situation is dangerous. He will be with his German advisers. They might persuade him to enter the war.’

  ‘He could not do it without the consent of the Parliament.’

  ‘The Opposition would support him merely to discomfit me.’

  ‘If you decide there shall be no war, there would be no war. That was what happened, was it not?’

  ‘I have reduced my majority, Madam, and increased my enemies. I should prefer the King to stay in England.’

  The Queen did not speak. How ill she looks! thought Walpole. Oh, God, why will she not admit it? There is something wrong. Is she hiding it? What does Charlotte Clayton know? Could he ask her? The woman had always hated him so it was hardly likely she would tell him.

  He understood suddenly. The Queen wanted the King to go because she needed a few months rest from his eternal tantrums, from his husbandly attentions, from his ill temper. The Queen needed to be free.

  Walpole had never once doubted the importance of the Queen. He respected her mind and her judgment. It was rarely that they disagreed; and over this matter of war she had admitted she was wrong. The fact that she could admit this enhanced her value in his eyes.

  He needed the Queen, and the Queen needed a respite from the King.

  Walpole made up his mind. He would put no more obstacles in the way of the King’s going to Hanover.

  * * *

  The King left for Hanover and in a few days the Queen seemed to have recovered a little in health. She now rested for a part of the day; she curtailed her walks; she was more relaxed. When Walpole visited her he knew that he had been right to run the risk of what mischief George could fall into in Hanover for the sake of giving the Queen this respite.

  Caroline was contented. She kept her daughter, her namesake, at her side as her constant companion and the other was, of course, Lord Hervey. How she doted on that man! She could scarcely bear him out of her sight. Walpole was not disturbed, for Hervey was his man too. Hervey was really the son she would have liked. The relationship was of that nature, for they were a perfect trinity—Caroline the mother, Caroline the daughter, and Hervey, so beloved of them both.

  The Prince of Wales was growing more and more angry at this friendship between his mother and his great enemy, but who cared for the Prince of Wales? And really young Frederick was a fool. What would happen to the country when he became King, Walpole could not imagine. Fortunately for Walpole it would be some other long-suffering minister’s unenviable task to control him. Our conceited little man seems considerably preferable, he thought.

  Amelia went her own way—probably having a love affair with Grafton. Who could be sure? In any case Amelia would know how to take care of herself. William was arrogant, passionately interested in soldiering, like all these Hanoverians, but a bright boy. A pity he had not been the eldest. The children, Mary and Louisa, were still in the nursery and the only reason their names were mentioned outside the immediate family was because they had a pretty governess who had caught the eye of the King.

  We can go on very pleasantly like this, thought Walpole. Let His Majesty find diversion in Hanover.

  The Queen was certainly diverting herself. One day in the great drawing room at Kensington she, with Lord Hervey and the Princess Caroline, were discussing art and Lord Hervey looking at the pictures adorning the walls gave his candid opinion of them.

  ‘They are very bad,’ he said. ‘I cannot understand how Your Majesty can endure them.’

  ‘I’ve never liked them,’ the Queen admitted.

  ‘That fat Venus is quite revolting.’

  The Queen admitted that she was. ‘There are some excellent Vandycks in this Palace,’ she said, ‘where they are not shown to advantage.’

  ‘Perhaps Your Majesty would like them brought into this drawing room and these ... horrors ... taken away.’

  ‘I think it would be amusing to make the change.’

  ‘Do let us do it, Mamma,’ cried the Princess Caroline, who always thought everything Lord Hervey suggested was absolutely right. ‘Shall I order it to be done?’

  ‘Pray do, my dear,’ said the Queen.

  The next day when the trio assembled in the great drawing room they agreed that the aspect was decidedly improved. One of the Vandyck pictures was that of Charles I’s children which the Queen said she liked particularly. The children were so charming and it was so sad to remember what happened to their father.

  Being rested she felt better and she decided to put into action a plan which she had in her mind for a long time. The King, as she explained to Hervey, hated spending money except on show for what he considered his own state.

  ‘Henrietta Howard never had very much, poor soul, although she was his mistress all those years—in a position which normally a woman might have made a fortune to comfort her old age.’

  ‘Poor Henrietta. I hear George Berkeley is courting her.’

  ‘How is it you hear all the news, mon enfant?’

  ‘I feel it my duty to gather it for the sole purpose of diverting Your Majesty.’

  ‘Well, I have a diversion for you. You are going to help me plan Merlin’s cave.’

  He had heard of this project which she had long cherished. It was to be a combined library and waxwork show in Richmond Park. Secretly he believed she wanted to give employment to a poet, a certain Stephen Duck. He was the son of a peasant in Wiltshire and worked as a thresher on a farm. But he had written some poems which had come to the Queen’s notice and, because they had been written by this humble man, she was much impressed and sought to help him. To mention poetry to the King was to ask for snorts of derision, so the only way to award such a man was to do so in George’s absence.

  Stephen Duck was to be the Librarian in this small thatched building with its romantic Gothic windows; and, among lifesize waxwork figures which
Caroline had added to the place, were effigies of Merlin and his secretary, Queen Elizabeth and Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII. There were several busts of philosophers and meta- physicians whose works had interested Caroline when she lived at the Court of the Queen of Prussia and which she had had little chance of studying since her marriage.

  The building of Merlin’s Cave provided a great deal of interest during those days and the people flocked into Richmond Park to see and admire it.

  Both the Queen and Walpole had hoped that the King would find Hanover diverting so that he would not make his visit too short.

  They did not guess how diverting this would be. The first indication of this came from the King himself. He was a great letter-writer and whenever he was absent from the Queen he made a habit of writing regularly to her. These were no mere notes but epistles which ran to forty or even sixty pages. His passion for detail had always been strong; in these letters he gave it full expression. Caroline knew how he passed every minute of his days. He would describe the food, the weather, the behaviour of his servants. So it was only natural that he should tell her of his excitement over a lady he had met in Hanover.

  ‘My dear Caroline, she is young and beautiful. She is of the first fashion and I shall not rest until I have made her my mistress. I think of nothing but this charming creature. How different from these English women! Her name is Amelia Sophia de Walmoden and she is married to a Hanoverian Baron, but I do not expect much opposition from him. This, of course, makes no difference to my love for you, my dear Caroline, and I know that you will wish me every success when I tell you how greatly I desire to be the lover of this beautiful enchanting creature....’

  When Caroline read this she let the letter flutter to the table in dismay and anger. Oh, my God, she thought, was there ever such a man! Why is it that other men keep their amours secret from their wives and this husband of mine seems to imagine that I have pleasure in sharing them!

  Even so at that stage she was not unduly alarmed. He was writing and telling her how his courtship progressed step by step. She was too delicious a creature it seemed to be unduly hurried, but his dear Caroline, knowing the man he was, would guess at his impatience. Perhaps she, being a woman of the same sex as his delightful enchantress, would be able to help him understand the dear creature. Did she think he should feign slightly less interest? Or should he declare himself wholeheartedly?

  Caroline showed the letters to Walpole who read them with shocked amusement.

  ‘At least, Your Majesty,’ he said, ‘we get our information at the fountain head. If this is a passing affair no harm done, but I should not like him to become too enamoured of one particular woman.’

  Later he returned to say that he had discovered that Madame de Walmoden was related to Ermengarda Schulemburg and the Countess von Platen. The Platens had supplied many mistresses to the royal house of Hanover including Ermengarda Schulemburg; therefore the lady might be of a clinging disposition. Walpole thought the situation should be carefully watched.

  ‘And your advice as to how I should answer this letter?’

  ‘I am sure Your Majesty has already made up your mind that the only way to deal with this matter is to sympathize. In that way we shall be made aware of every detail of the affair as it progresses.’

  * * *

  It was a painful way. Each week the letters were growing longer and longer and more and more space was devoted to his affair with Madame de Walmoden.

  It was not progressing quite as speedily as he, the ardent lover, could wish. Perhaps his methods were not as acceptable to the dear creature as they might be. The Queen should show this to le gros homme whose affairs with women had been so numerous that he must be most experienced. Ask his advice. Ask what he would do in similar circumstances. The King would be eager to hear.

  When Walpole saw the letter he asked if this was a new departure of the King’s, for the Queen seemed dismayed by these revelations.

  ‘He has always talked of his love affairs with women ... most intimately. He believes that I am so devoted to his interests, and that means his pleasure, that I can only rejoice in whatever way he achieves it. When he has been away on other occasions he has written of his brief adventures but never in quite the same way, never so exuberantly. And of course he talked freely of the women he made love to here at home. But I sense something different about this.’

  ‘That’s what I feared,’ said Walpole.

  Lord Hervey came in while they were talking together and would have left with an apology, but the Queen called him to her and told him what they were discussing.

  She showed him the letter; and after that she showed him all the King’s letters, so he too was fully aware of the growing importance of the Walmoden affair.

  * * *

  ‘I know you will rejoice, my dear wife, that Madame de Walmoden has now become my mistress. What joy! I was not in the least disappointed.’

  There followed a description of the event and the peculiar charms of his mistress.

  He would like, he wrote, to keep her with him day and night, but that was not possible in view of his duties as Elector and King. But Caroline would remember well the gardens of the Leine Schloss. Well, he had given his dearest mistress apartments there so that she could have a charming view. He, of course, had to spend a great deal of time at Herrenhausen, but Caroline could be assured that he spent as much time with dear Madame de Walmolden as possible. He loved his dear wife none the less because he had this joy in his mistress; and he knew that his dear Caroline must be very happy at this time to know of his satisfaction.

  Surely, thought Caroline, such a letter could never before have been written by a husband to his wife!

  How firm was the hold of this woman on him?

  It was comforting to read the footnote at the end of the letter.

  He had heard news of the Princess of Modena, a young woman of immense sexual dexterity who was very free with her person. The Prince of Modena was, as Caroline knew, to pay a visit to England at the end of the year. He wanted her to insist that the Prince bring his wife with him. ‘She is a daughter of the Regent of France, the Duc d’Orléans, and I have a great inclination to pay my addresses to her; and this is a pleasure which I know you will want to procure for me when you know how much I wish it.’

  Caroline laughed. It was seeing these sentiments written down which made him so ridiculous. He was the man with whom she had lived over all these years, but seen from a distance one had the clearer view. For him with his arrogance, his utter selfishness, his blind conceit she had subdued her desire for learning; she had pretended to follow him, to think no thought that he did not think first.

  But how different it had really been It was she who had led him.

  And this silly little man had not the remotest idea of the true figure he cut.

  * * *

  In her reply Caroline gave no indication of the rancour she felt; Walpole was right when he said she must encourage him to give absolute frankness.

  She wrote long letters to him, for since he wrote them to her he expected them in return. She told him all the Court gossip she could think of and when she heard that Henrietta Howard had married George Berkeley gave him the news. This was not considered a very good match, for Berkeley was old and neither handsome nor rich; but he had long admired Henrietta and Caroline guessed that the marriage would be a successful one for Berkeley was devoted to her and Henrietta was looking for a quiet and peaceful happiness.

  The King wrote that he was surprised his former mistress had married gouty old George Berkeley and he was not displeased, though he would not wish to confer such presents on his friends, but when his enemies robbed him, he prayed God they would always do it thus.

  This was a churlish gesture, thought the Queen, towards Henrietta who had suffered so long from the boredom of his visits and the sharpness of his temper.

  But perhaps now, compared with the wonderful Madame de Walmoden, every other woman seemed wor
thless.

  Then came a letter in which was a piece of news which Caroline realized must be acted on without delay.

  He had found a bride for Frederick. It was time that young puppy was married. They would have no peace until he was. And in any case he was no longer young and should start getting heirs. While at Herrenhausen the Princess Augusta of Saxe Gotha had been presented to him. He found her a worthy princess in every way and he had decided that she would make a bride for the Prince of Wales.

  When this piece of news was imparted to Walpole he was delighted.

  ‘It will please the people,’ he said, ‘and it will take away one of the Prince’s main grievances. We must not allow this opportunity to pass by. Your Majesty should write to the King expressing your pleasure. And then we must acquaint His Highness with the good news.’

  The Queen sent for the Prince of Wales.

  Oh, my God, she thought, this is my son. How she disliked the prominent eyes, the heavy jaw, everything that so reminded her of the King! Frederick’s manners in public were excellent, but in private they were far from good. The fact was that he did not like his family any more than they liked him.

  ‘I have good news for you, Frederick,’ his mother told him. ‘Your father has a bride for you.’

  Frederick’s expression lightened. This was the best news he could have heard.

  ‘Who is she?’ he asked.

  ‘The Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.’

  ‘Young?’

  ‘Very young ... almost too young. Sixteen.’

  ‘That’s not too young,’ said the Prince with a grin.

  ‘Then you are pleased?’

  ‘I’m in love with the girl already.’

  ‘I wish you would be serious. Your father reports that she is a worthy match so I think you should prepare yourself for marriage.’