Indiscretions of the Queen

The Unwilling Bridegroom

HE hates me, she thought. He could not have expressed it more clearly than if he had stated it in words. If they had let us meet before this and he had treated me so I would never have married him. She felt so alone. Her only friend was the Earl of Malmesbury and she knew that, in a way, while he deplored the Prince’s behaviour, he understood it.

Why should this fat Prince find her so repulsive when Major Ivon Töbingen had loved her so much?

Life was cruel to princesses, but one thing she had learned and that was that self-pity was of no use to anyone. She had to face them all at dinner— the dinner to celebrate her arrival— when the Prince would entertain all those who had brought her to England.

There was only one course open to a woman of her nature, and that was to show them that she did not care for their opinion, not even her husband’s.

She might have known what to expect. Had he not insulted her before he had met her by appointing his mistress a lady of her bedchamber?

She was not quite sure afterwards what happened at that dinner. All she was aware of were the disgusted looks of the Prince, the shocked ones of Lord Malmesbury and the delight of Lady Jersey which she scarcely took the trouble to hide. At least they should discover that she was not a meek nonentity. If they were going to be unpleasant to her, she would treat them in the same way.

She accused Lady Jersey— in a mischievous way— of being the Prince’s mistress.

She laughed loudly and continuously; she chattered in her own brand of French which was very different from the elegant manner in which the Prince expressed himself in that language. And as she drank and ate without restraint, her laughter grew louder, her comments more risqué. The company was half amused, half horrified. The Prince alone felt no amusement, only dread.

And in the midst of her banter she had suddenly felt so lonely. She had wanted this man who was to be her husband to be interested in her and at least to give her a chance to please him. She thought of the children she had always dreamed of having. And this man would be their father. Why should he prefer that old woman— the mother of all those children— to the young woman who was his wife? She had youth‚ she was not as unattractive as he believed her to be. Her hair was quite lovely and she had heard that he greatly admired beautiful hair. It was, someone had said, Mrs Fitzherbert’s cascades of bright curls and waves which had first attracted him to her.

And that woman sitting there now saying little but unable to hide her smirks of satisfaction, had tried to make her wear a turban which would have hidden her beautiful hair . On impulse she removed the combs from her hair and it fell about her shoulders.

There was silence at the table. The Prince looked at her in astonishment Is the woman mad? he was thinking. My God, what have I done to be burdened with such a creature?

Lord Malmesbury was looking embarrassed. He was upset which meant of course that she had done the wrong thing again. She laughed louder than ever, she made some crude jest. They were talking together, ignoring her. She did not need the sad looks of Lord Malmesbury, the furtive pleasure of Lady Jersey, the scarcely veiled horror of the Prince to tell her that she was a dismal failure.

When her maids helped her to disrobe that night, she continued her wild chatter, but when she was alone, she lay quietly thinking of the future What will become of me? she wondered. There was no point in pretending to be defiant in the darkness of her room. She was afraid; she had to remind herself that she was a Brunswick lion and they never showed fear.

‘He hates me,’ she whispered. ‘Why, I did not expect him to love me— so soon. But he hates me. I disgusted him— So much that he could not hide it.

Suppose he refuses to marry me? Nothing would please me more!’

Then she pictured her return to Brunswick— defeated, the Princess who was sent on approval and found unacceptable!

She imagined her mother’s diatribes which would go on and on for the rest of her life, for no other Prince would want to marry a Princess who had been rejected by the Prince of Wales. There was her dearest Töbingen. Oh lucky people who were not royal and free to marry where they loved!

But whatever the next few days held for her, she must face it. And there was only one way she knew how to act. It was how she had acted tonight. She had been coarse, vulgar, ribald, mocking, indifferent to their scorn. It made dear Lord Malmesbury sad.

But what can I do? she asked herself. What other way is there? She knew of none The Queen received Lady Jersey in private.

It was a difficult position, mused the Queen, for she had no wish to encourage immorality in the court; and the Prince’s love affairs were most public. But Lady Jersey, reasoned the Queen, was doing the country a service. She had separated the Prince from Mrs Fitzherbert and so made a marriage possible for him, for while he continued with that woman he would never have married because she convinced him that she was his wife. Sometimes, the Queen reminded herself it was necessary to waive one’s principles for the good of the country.

Lady Jersey’s manners were impeccable. She swept a deep respectful curtsey and the Queen signed for her to rise.

‘Pray be seated, Lady Jersey’

Lady Jersey humbly thanked Her Majesty and waited for the questions.

‘You have recently come from the Princess Caroline. Tell me, how is she?’

‘Your Majesty, I greatly fear ‘ Lady Jersey stopped herself.

The Queen said graciously: ‘You may proceed.’

‘Your Majesty will think me presumptuous but because Your Majesty asks for truth—’ .

‘Yes, yes. I want the truth.’

‘I fear Her Highness has not been bred for the high honour for which she has been brought to England.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

Lady Jersey told, stressing the gaucherie, the uncouth manners, the effect her appearance had on the Prince, his horror.

‘Do you think he may refuse to go on with the marriage?’

‘Oh, but he must go on with it now, Your Majesty. Or perhaps I am wrong, but—’

‘If he refused to go through the ceremony, he could do so.’

Lady Jersey was secretly alarmed. She knew how the Queen’s mind was working. It was not too late for him to give up Caroline of Brunswick and take Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Never! thought Lady Jersey. Caroline might not suit the Prince but she suited her purposes perfectly.

‘It is for him to say,’ went on the Queen triumphantly.

‘Madam, what are your instructions regarding the Princess?’

‘Watch her. If she writes to her home, I should like to see the letters before they are sent. I should like to have reports of her conversation. I gather she is a very indiscreet young woman.’

‘Alas, Your Majesty that’s very true.’

‘We shall see what happens. In the meantime keep me informed. And if the opportunity arises to advise the Prince, you may be able to make him aware that it is not yet too late.’

Lady Jersey said that it was her great pleasure to serve Her Majesty.

The Prince paced up and down his silk-lined drawing room and declared: ‘I cannot marry the woman. The very thought of it makes me ill.’

Lady Jersey looked at him sadly. ‘You could never draw back now.’

‘Why not? Why should I not?’

‘The proxy ceremony has taken place.’

‘A pox on the proxy ceremony! I have not made any promises to the woman.’

‘It would be an international incident if she were sent home now.’

‘Little Brunswick! Need we fear that petty little place?’

‘There are your debts.’

‘I would take another wife if necessary, but not this one.’

Lady Jersey’s eyes narrowed. Another wife? The alluring Louise. It was just what the Queen was hoping for. Her own niece to form an alliance with her— the wives of the King and the Prince would rule together. The poor, kind, weak- minded King whose mind often went wandering and the pleasure loving Prince of Wales to be ruled by the ladies of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. And what of Lady Jersey? How would an attractive young wife deal with a mistress who for all her charms was an ageing woman?

She knew the Prince. If he succeeded in throwing off Caroline, he would think her successor desirable and beautiful merely because of the comparison.

My God, she thought, what a trial I have to keep my place! Did Fitzherbert go through all this? But she was wily and she enjoyed the game really. It was a great pleasure to work with the Queen— or to allow the Queen to think she was working with her — when all the time she was playing her own game.

Then she said: ‘And what of the people?’

‘The people. What have they to do with my marriage?’

‘Everything that concerns their future King concerns the people. They are already showing sympathy for the Princess.’

‘Why should they?’

‘You know what the people are. They imagine someone is in distress and out comes the sympathy. I think that if you sent Caroline home you would make her into a martyr and in doing so you would become very unpopular.’

That startled him. He longed to be popular. He often thought of the old days when he had been Prince Charming and so handsome, the days before he grew so fat. Everywhere he went the people had cheered him. He longed for a return of that popularity.

Lady Jersey smiled secretly and she was glad: he would refuse to marry the girl and then they could bring Louise over.

‘I feel I cannot go on with it.’

The Queen put in: ‘You know, George, it is for you to say whether you can marry this Princess or not.’

‘I cannot marry her,’ said the Prince.

‘The King will tell you that it is for you to say,’ reiterated the Queen The King nodded. ‘No one can make you marry if you do not wish to. But you have to consider the reason for the proposed marriage. It is a condition of the Parliament, eh, what? No marriage— no payment of debts. What are you going to do then, eh? Creditors getting impatient? They’ll be in Carlton House if we say no marriage. It will only take that.’

‘I cannot marry her. I cannot.’ The Prince was striking his forehead dramatically. But the thought of those debts, the total of which he dared not contemplate, and the effect his jilting of the Princess would have on the people, made him realize that there was no other way out.

He talked to his friends. He could not stop talking. They all knew of the revulsion the Princess Caroline aroused in him and in the clubs the betting against the marriage’s taking place was high.

‘He won’t do it, they said. ‘He can’t face it.’

And the Prince said to himself, ‘Can I face marrying her? Can I face not marrying her?’

There was one, of course, who might have decided for him. He thought of her often. Maria. Why had she not understood that he had not meant it when he had said he would not see her again? She should have wept and stormed. It was what he had expected. Instead, that silence, and then her leaving the country.

But she was back now. She was at Marble Hill. She was his sweet lass of Richmond Hill as she had been in-the old days— and always would be.

He could have talked to Maria as he never could to Lady Jersey. He had never loved Frances Jersey. She had fascinated him— still did to a certain extent — but it was Maria he wanted.

She had struck the right note. He would go through with this marriage for he realized how right she was.

The people would be against him if he treated Caroline so churlishly.

He looked grim. He could see that there was nothing to be done but marriage and yet— Who knew, some miracle might happen.

Caroline lifted her eyes to the protuberant ones of her uncle. There at least she saw kindness.

‘Welcome to England, my dear,’ he said in German, which was comforting.

‘We are happy that you are joining the family.’

She could have hugged him and almost did— until she remembered that he was the King. This was the brother of whom her mother had talked so often— George who had a kind heart and addled head.

And now the Queen. Caroline was startled by the venom in the face of the little woman who was Queen of England. She is ugly, thought Caroline, and they were right when they said I should beware of her, for she hates me. She was bidding her welcome in English but that was no welcome. Queen Charlotte had no friendliness, no warmth to offer the stranger. Caroline had come without her blessing and she had no intention of pretending that it was otherwise.

And there were the Princesses who quite clearly took their cue from their mother.

This is my new family, thought Caroline.

The Prince called on the King and Queen to express his feelings forcibly.

‘The thought of marriage with Caroline fills me with horror,’ he declared.

‘She is the most unattractive woman I ever saw.’

‘She seems a pleasant sort of young woman,’ said the King. ‘I thought she was good looking— in a way. Surely you exaggerate, eh, what?’

The Queen watched her husband and son slyly. The Prince was really distressed, there was no doubt about that.

He sent for his phaeton and rode out. He drove wildly and the horses were heading for Richmond.

Miss Pigot saw the well-known phaeton. ‘Maria,’ she called, ‘he has come.

He is here.’

Maria came running into her drawing room crying: ‘What are you saying?’

‘He rode past just now. I saw him clearly.’

‘He rode by,’ said Maria sadly.

‘He will come back. He has ridden by in the hope of seeing you.’

Maria took her stand at the window— to the side so that she could see and not be seen.

‘Are you sure?’

Miss Pigot nodded. ‘Poor, poor darling. He is so unhappy. All he needs is a sign from you.’

Maria shook her head. ‘It is I who need the sign.’

‘This is it. He is coming back to you. He has come to tell you so.’

‘Then why ride by?’

‘Because he wants that sign from you. He wants you to bid him come in, to make him welcome.’

‘He was never so coy, before, my dear.’

‘He is begging you to take him back.’

‘I have not noticed it. A strange way to beg. To become betrothed when he already has a wife.’

‘Oh, Maria, don’t turn your back on happiness.’

‘I tell you it is for him to say. Have not the decisions always been his? As for myself, I must just wait.’

‘He is coming again. He is coming back. I can hear the horses.’

‘Stand away from the window.’

‘It is for you to stand there. To beckon him as he passes.’

Maria stood very still, hidden from sight. She did not move. The phaeton drove past but she was aware that the pace of the horses slackened as they approached.

Was he in truth waiting for that sign?

I cannot give it, she thought. How can I? I am his wife. What does he want? For me to go back to him, to acknowledge myself his mistress? ‘He has gone,’ said Miss Pigot. ‘But perhaps he will come again.’

He did— twice past the house; and on each occasion Maria stood at the window, waiting, hoping, but not showing herself.

She gave no sign and he rode back to Carlton House.

But she kept thinking of him, riding out to Richmond. Surely it must have been because he hoped she would welcome him to her house. She thought of the vows of eternal fidelity he had made to her. She believed herself to be his wife.

Did he believe her to be?

She would know the answer to that question in a few days’ time. If he refused to marry the Princess Caroline she would know that he considered he had a wife already, and since he had come to Richmond could that mean that he wished the world to know it?

The Prince had had a sleepless night, but when he awoke on that Wednesday morning of the 8th of April, he knew he must go on with the marriage.

While he was being dressed in his splendidly embroidered blue velvet coat and his elegant knee breeches he called for a glass of brandy. He drank it quickly and felt a little better. But by the time he had put on his high heeled buckled shoes and was ready to leave for the Chapel Royal at St. James’s, he needed more brandy to sustain him in his ordeal.

Lord Moira, who was to accompany him, asked the Prince very cautiously if it were wise to take so much brandy before this important event.

‘I need it, Moira,’ he declared with tears in his eyes, ‘for I do not think I can go through this ceremony without it.’

Lord Moira was sympathetic, but he could not agree that more brandy was what was needed.

‘My dear friend,’ said the Prince, ‘you see before you the most reluctant bridegroom in the world.’

‘Your Highness takes this too hardly.’

‘How otherwise can one take a bad business?’

The carriage was at the door and the resplendent bridegroom took his place in it. Lord Moira beside him.

As they rode from Carlton House to St. James’s, he said mournfully: ‘It is no use, Moira. I shall never love any woman but Fitzherbert.’

Caroline was being dressed in St. James’s whither she had come after the family dinner at Buckingham House. What an ordeal with those sly looking Princesses watching her all the time, and the Queen showing her disdain.

If I had known what it would be like I would never have come, she told herself. My father would never have forced me. Oh, how I wish I was home in Brunswick. And the Prince hates me. He shows that clearly. More and more every day he hates me. There was only one member of the family who was kind to her and that was the King. His hands shook as he embraced her and he kissed her as though he enjoyed doing so. She almost wished that she had come as his bride instead of his son’s. At least he would have been kind.

When she had left Buckingham House he had taken her into his arms and kissed her fondly.

‘This is a happy day, my dear,’ he had said rather mournfully, and the rest of the family showed quite clearly that they considered it a calamity. The Prince and the Queen hated her— and those silly parrot-like Princesses followed their mother.

She looked at her white satin dress with the pearl embroidery. It was beautiful; and she, who liked flamboyant clothes, should have been pleased with it and the big cloak of crimson velvet which covered it. But she was very apprehensive as she left the apartment for the Chapel Royal.

The Prince swayed as he walked into the Chapel Royal. The two unmarried Dukes on either side of him moved closer for they thought he would totter. A fine thing it would be if the Prince had to be carried to the altar because he was too drunk to walk there.

Caroline, who had entered the chapel on the arm of the King had decided that she would hide her true feelings from all those who had come to watch her married and consequently appeared to be unbecomingly gay. Walking down the aisle with the King she smiled and nodded to people as he passed. The King did not appear to notice her odd behaviour but everyone else did.

There was a hushed silence throughout the chapel and all attention was focused on those two brilliant figures. The Prince swayed a little, magnificent in his blue velvet and Collar of the Garter but, as many noticed, looking confused and uneasy; and Caroline, shimmering in her be-jewelled white satin with the diamond coronet on her head, looked a true Princess.

But the Prince could not bear to look at her and kept his face turned from her.

He was thinking of that other ceremony which had taken place in Mrs.

Fitzherbert’s house in Park Street. That was a real marriage; this was a farce and he yearned for Maria, whom he knew he should never have left— and he had done so for the sake of Frances Jersey! If he had left her for marriage to this woman, it would have been a different matter, for this could be blamed on the exigencies of State. But he had deserted her for Lady Jersey whom he was discovering to be worthless in spite of her fascination. He was a traitor to Maria.

He despised himself and he longed for an opportunity to tell her so.

And here he was at the altar about to be married to a woman he hated. Yes, he did hate her; he hated her fiercely. He could see no virtue in her. To him she was utterly repulsive and even the fumes of brandy which dulled his brain and his senses could not free him from the horror he visualized in the marriage bed.

How different that ceremony in Park Street and the ecstasy which had followed!

Oh Maria, Maria, you have deserted me! But that was wrong. He had to admit it. It was he who had deserted Maria.

Is it too late? But of course it was too late. Here he was at the altar and Dr.

Moore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was about to conduct the ceremony.

He knelt while the Archbishop began to say those words which had been said before in a house in Park Street, when he had made his responses with a joy as great as the revulsion he now felt.

The Prince was feeling dizzy; the brandy was having its effect though it relieved his feelings very little. He heard the Archbishop asking if anyone knew of an impediment why they might not be lawfully joined together in Holy Matrimony; and in that moment he saw Maria’s reproachful eyes begging him to remember.

He stumbled to his feet. He must get away. He could not go on with this.

There was a sudden silence in the chapel. All eyes were on the Prince of Wales; all wondered what drama they were about to witness.

Then the King rose from his seat and stepped up to stand beside the Prince.

‘For Heaven’s sake,’ whispered the King, ‘remember what this means.’

‘I—’ began the Prince, his face creased in his misery, the ever-ready tears springing to his eyes.

‘It’s too late— too late—’ whispered the King. Wretchedly the Prince nodded and once more knelt beside the Princess.

Dr. Moore was aware of the cause of the Prince’s distress. Who in the chapel was not? Everyone had heard of the marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert.

The Archbishop proceeded with the ceremony and when he came to the injunction to the bridegroom to forsake all others but his wife, he repeated it.

There was a tense expectancy throughout the chapel. Until the ring was on the Princess’s finger, many believed that the Prince would stop the ceremony.

But at last it was over, and the Prince of Wales had been married to Caroline of Brunswick.

Organ music filled the chapel and the choir began to sing: For blessed are they that fear the Lord. O well is thee! O well is thee! and happy shalt thou be.’ And the chorus: Happy, happy, happy shalt thou be.’