by Jean Plaidy
Elizabeth was near to marry the Duke of Kingston, whose mistress she had been so many years, and when it was not possible to arrange the divorce, declared that she had never really been married, and now she had gone through a form of marriage with the Duke of Kingston.
It was all very complicated, thought the King; and he did not wish to hear of it. He did not wish to see Elizabeth because she reminded him of Hannah Lightfoot. So he was pleased to push her to the back of his mind, but her strange behaviour did underline the licentiousness of his Court which he was trying to combat. All these women he admired were adventuresses, it seemed; and the admirable one was Charlotte. Charlotte with her little body, the plain face, the wide mouth which the lampoonists likened to a crocodile's. Charlotte, his wife. So plain, so good, so dull.
So he must commit his infidelities in dreams and in reality remain Charlotte's good husband. He gave evidence of this. Elizabeth had been born as also had been Ernest Augustus bringing the total up to eight. Five boys and three girls; and they had not yet been married ten years! No one could doubt that they were doing their duty. But he was deeply disturbed about his brothers and he kept remembering his mother's injunctions to get a law passed which would prevent royal personages marrying without their sovereign's consent.
He thought of those five boys and three girls and sincerely hoped that they would not bring him as much trouble as their aunts and uncles had. And thinking of this he decided that his mother was right and that something should be done.
The King was preparing a message which would be delivered to his Parliament: His Majesty, being desirous, from paternal affection to his own family and anxious concern for the future welfare of his people, and the honour and dignity of his Crown, that the right of approving all marriages in the royal family (which ever has belonged to the Kings of this Realm as a matter of public concern) may be made effectual, recommends to both houses of Parliament to take into their serious consideration whether it may not be wise or expedient to supply the defects of the law now in being, and by some new provision more effectually to guard the descendants of his late Majesty King George II (other than the issue of Princesses who may have married or may hereafter marry into foreign families) from marrying without the approbation of His Majesty, his heirs and successors.
When this message was delivered to the two Houses it was received with hostility. Chatham, on one of his rare appearances in the House of Lords, hobbled in, swathed in bandages, to thunder against the Act.
"New fangled and impudent," he cried. Others said: "This should be called "An Act to encourage Fornication and Adultery in the Descendants of George III".”
Lord North came to see the King and shook his head over the Bill. "It is most unpopular, Your Majesty.”
"I am sure it is right," declared George obstinately. "This must go through.”
The opposition continued. It was called a wicked act; but the King was determined.
He wrote to Lord North: I do expect every nerve to be strained to carry the Bill through both Houses with a becoming firmness, for it is not a question which immediately relates to the administration but personally to myself, and therefore I have a right to expect a hearty support from everyone in my service and shall remember defaulters.
The last phrase was ominous. Although this was a constitutional monarchy the King carried great weight, having the power to appoint ministers. There were some though who opposed him. One of these was Charles James Fox, a young man who was already beginning to make himself known in the House. Son of Lord Holland, nephew of Sarah Lennox, he was a man of overpowering personality. He stood firmly against the Marriage Act and resigned because of it.
A plague on young Fox, thought the King. His own mother, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, had run away from home to marry Henry Fox. A misalliance, thought the King. One could see the way that young man's mind worked. But he was angry with Mr. Fox. He would remember him.
The Bill had a stormy passage and could not be passed through exactly as the King wished. It was amended. The consent of the Sovereign should only be necessary until the parties were twenty-six years of age, after which a marriage might take place unless Parliament objected. A year's notice of the proposed alliance must be given.
Modified as the Bill was there were still storms of protest; but eventually it was passed with a meagre majority.
No sooner had the Marriage Bill been passed than George received a communication from his brother William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. William Henry had a confession to make. Six years before he had married and, because he believed that the King would not approve of his marriage, he had kept it secret. Now, of course, that the Marriage Bill had been passed, he must come out into the open.
And the woman he had married was Lady Waldegrave, the widow of their tutor whom George had so intensely disliked. That was not all. Lady Waldegrave was, in the King's opinion, most unsuited to be the wife of a royal duke. She was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole and her mother was said to have been a milliner! George was wounded not only by this most unsuitable marriage but by the fact that for six years his brother had kept it secret from him.
"The fool! The idiot!" he shouted. "They have no sense ... these brothers of mine. They think of nothing ... nothing but the gratification of their senses. They don't look ahead. They forget they are royal and they allow themselves to be caught by adventuresses.”
Charlotte, hearing the news, because it spread rapidly through the Court, tried to comfort her husband.
"At least we set a good example," she reminded him.
He looked at her ... plain little Charlotte, the mother of his numerous progeny. He had had to accept her; while his brothers chose these fascinating sirens whose unsuitability meant they must be doubly desirable, because even his reckless brothers would not be trapped into marriage unless they were. The more he thought of them, the more his lips tightened, and the more angry he became.
"They shall not be received at Court," he said. Then he was sad, thinking of the old days.
"Gloucester was my favourite brother after Edward died. We were often together and when he was young he was so serious.”
Charlotte nodded. "But that was only because he could not be anything else.”
"He was a good religious boy ... and so was Edward ... when we were all together in the schoolroom.”
"But they lost their seriousness with their freedom.”
"A madness seemed to possess them," began George, and was silent suddenly. That word which his mother had always hated to hear on his lips! No, no ... he thought ... a wildness. He went on: "A reckless desire to find pleasure ... everywhere. It seems as though they thought they had so much to make up for. I can't understand my brothers. Why do they have to behave in this way?”
Charlotte could not say. Her expression was prim. She was becoming very like her husband.
"I shall not receive them," said George. "I shall not accept this marriage. It may have been entered into before the Marriage Act but I shall not accept it all the same. Why should I, eh? What?”
But a further letter came from Gloucester. His wife was expecting a child. He hoped this would influence the King to accept them. When George read this he threw it on to his table. His brothers were going to be forced to realize their responsibility. He had had to make sacrifices; so should they. His family had displeased him and he was disappointed in them all. He remembered how he had adored Lord Bute and how he had been the last one to understand the relationship between that nobleman and his mother.
No, he was not going to be duped any more. They would have to understand that he was the King and he made the decisions. And why should his brothers enjoy the pleasures of matrimony with these fascinating women while he the King had constantly to think of his duty?
He wrote to his brother that, after the birth of the child, he would have the marriage as well as the birth 'enquired into'. This enraged Gloucester who replied that he must have an immediate enquiry, and if t
he King would not agree with this he would take the case personally to the House of Lords.
What could George do? He was hemmed in by the rules and regulations of constitutional monarchy. His power was limited; laws could be passed without his will. It was possible for the Lords to declare the marriage valid without his consent. There was nothing to be done.
He gave way. He accepted Gloucester's marriage; but that did not mean Gloucester would be welcome at Court. He would not receive his brother; and Queen Charlotte declared that she had no intention of receiving the milliner's daughter.
Gloucester laughed at them, and with his wife set about indulging his favourite hobby: travel. So the Gloucesters travelled all over the Continent and the Cumberlands enjoyed life at home; and neither of them cared that they were not received at Court. The Court was dull in any case. What else could it be, presided over by George and Charlotte?
George spent more and more time with his family. His children enchanted him. The model farm, the games of cricket, the wandering through the country lanes that was the life for him. But he knew in his heart that he would not hold out against his brothers. He could not forget how close they had all been in the schoolroom. In due course he would receive them; he would be kind to their wives; because whatever they had done they were his brothers and he was a very sentimental man. Loss of sister, colony and statesman. Harassed by family trouble, George was no less troubled by affairs of state.
The situation between his government and the American Colonists was growing more and more tense. The East India Company was in difficulties and the Government was forced not only to subsidize it but to give it a monopoly to export tea to America.
Previously their Bohea tea had been brought to England where a duty of one shilling in the pound was levied on it. Although tea which entered the American Colonies was taxed, the tax was much lower than that in England, being only three pence instead of a shilling, which meant that the Colonists were getting their tea at half the price of the English.
This was not the issue at stake, which was that the Americans refused to be taxed or governed by the Mother Country. It violated their rights, they insisted, and there were members of the British Government who agreed with them, notably Chatham.
Disaster was threatening, but neither the King nor Lord North could see this; they lacked the vision to put themselves in the place of the colonists and were being dragged farther and farther into a disaster which was all the more to be deplored because it was unnecessary.
That the colonists were in a fighting mood was apparent when a party of young men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded a vessel belonging to the East India Company and which was carrying a consignment of Bohea tea to the value of 18,000 pounds and tipped it into Boston harbour. It was a sign for disorder to break out throughout the American Colonies.
George and Lord North discussed the matter together and decided that a firm hand was needed.
There must be no conciliatory measures. Those of the past, they agreed, were responsible for what was happening now.
There was a storm of protest in the Government. Charles James Fox was using his considerable talents to oppose Lord North. Chatham, wrapped in flannel, arrived to make a protest in which he cried: "Let the Mother Country act like an affectionate parent towards a beloved child, pass an amnesty on their youthful errors, and clasp them once more in her arms.”
North raged against the feeble conduct of the Opposition and a great problem faced the Government: to give the Colony independence in the hope that it would remain loyal to the Crown, or to force it to remain subservient to the Mother Country by force of arms.
North and the King chose the second alternative, and it was decided to send Lieutenant General Thomas Gage to subdue the colonists. He told the King that the colonists would be lions if they were lambs, but that if they themselves were resolute the colonists would be very meek.
This misconception was not proved until too late, and George was soon writing to North: "The die is now cast and the Colonies must either submit or triumph. I do not wish to come to severer measures, but we must not retreat." The die was indeed cast; and George was about to commit that error of judgement which was to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Then there was a further tragedy.
In her exile at Celle, Caroline Matilda had settled down to a not uncomfortable existence. It was a relief to be free of the Danish Court and not to have to see Christian, that husband who disgusted her and had become almost a lunatic by now. All she regretted was the loss of her children and for them she did pine. News was, however, brought to her of them from time to time and she tried to make the best of life.
Remembering the old days when they had all practised amateur theatricals, she arranged for a theatre to be constructed in the castle; and this was done. There she gathered together a little band of actors and they performed plays in which Caroline Matilda took a prominent part. She would tell them of her childhood when her family had all enjoyed amateur theatricals and how Lord Bute, who had been almost like a father to them for she had never known her own, having been born after his death, had been so clever at stage-managing and acting, in fact everything concerned with the theatre.
She read a great deal and was visited often, by people who came from England. They brought her news from home which she welcomed. Her resignation ended when she received a visit one day from a young Englishman, a Mr. Wraxall, who was gay, handsome and in search of adventure.
It was pleasant to have such a charming and amusing young man at her Court and when he told Caroline Matilda that he believed there were many people in Denmark who would welcome her back, they put their heads together to try to work out a scheme to bring about her return.
Caroline Matilda was not certain that she wished to go; but she was only twenty-three and although she had put on a great deal of weight she was still attractive; she was so fair that her hair was almost white and her eyes, so like George's, were blue and sparkling. She was attracted to Mr.
Wraxall and his devotion gave her great pleasure, so she found herself drawn more and more into his schemes. They would sit together in the French garden within the castle grounds, and talk of the days when she would again mount the throne of Denmark.
"It will be wonderful," she told Mr. Wraxall, 'to see my children again. Little Frederick must miss me and Louisa ... she will not remember, but she will hear tales of me ... perhaps unpleasant tales.
They will turn her against me.”
"They will not do that," Mr. Wraxall assured her, 'because you are going to be there with them ...
before long.”
It was so pleasant to bask in Mr. Wraxall's admiration and dream of the future that she wondered why she had ever been content to remain in exile. They talked constantly of the glory that would be hers when she was back in her rightful place. She would start again; she would be the great Queen of the Danes; and when her little Frederick ruled, she would be beside him. It was a very alluring picture ... pleasant to imagine, exciting to talk of.
Sometimes when she was alone, though, she thought of the charms of Celle, of her delightful French garden, of her theatre, of the little world of which she was the centre. Apart from the fact that she was separated from her children she could have been perfectly happy here.
She thought of England where she had led an extremely sheltered life, shut away from fun, kept behind the scenes by a stern mother. Her mother was dead now, but she had heard that the English Court was dull. She had never greatly cared for Charlotte who had always seemed so insignificant. She loved George, of course, but he was scarcely the most exciting person in the world. That was England. And then Denmark. Exciting, yes, when she and Struensee had been lovers; but what had been the end of that? She shivered; she had come rather near to losing her life.
But she was young and she did not want to be like her great-grandmother and spend twenty years in exile. When she next saw Mr. Wraxall she pointed out to him that their plan coul
d not possibly succeed unless they had money, and the only place where they could hope for that was from England.
"My brother," she said, 'is the only one who could help us. If he gave his approval to this scheme I would be ready to act without delay.”
Mr. Wraxall looked dismayed, but he had to agree that she was right. If the plan were to succeed, they would need money. "And you think your brother would help us?”
She was thoughtful. Would George help? George was just a little mean, but was that over the small household matters? As for Charlotte, she had the reputation of being a miser, but Charlotte was not involved in this. She, poor insignificant creature, had no say in anything.
She did not really believe anything would come of the affair; it was something to dream about as one sat in the spring sunshine in the French garden.
Mr. Wraxall said he would go to London to see if he could arrange an interview with the King, which he was sure he would be able to do when the King knew he had come from his sister. Then he would ask George for his help and when they had it, they would go triumphantly ahead with their plan.
"Pray do that," said Caroline Matilda. "And I will await your return with the good news.”
So Mr. Wraxall left for London and Caroline Matilda waited, without any great enthusiasm, for her brother's response.
The King's equerry stood before him.
"A gentleman, Your Majesty, who asks an audience. He says his name is Wraxall and that he comes from the Queen of Denmark.”
George's emotions were in revolt. There had been so much trouble already, that he had come to expect nothing else from his relations. Caroline Matilda with some request. He could guess what that request would be. She was tired of her exile; she wanted to return to Denmark or to come to England. She was tired of living in the shadows. But only there was she safe.
