Perdita's Prince

The Queen’s maid of honour

THE PRINCE OF Wales stalked up and down his apartments in the Dower Lodge on Kew Green and aired his grievances to his brother, Prince Frederick.

‘I tell you this, Fred,’ he declared, ‘I have had enough. The time is now coming to an end when we can be treated like children. Like children, did I say? Why, bless you, Fred, we are treated like prisoners. Our father, His Majesty …’ The Prince made an ironical bow which brought a titter to Frederick’s lips ‘… is the slave of his own passionate virtue. God preserve us, Fred, from virtue such as that practised by King George III. And our mother? What is she but a queen bee? There in her hive she grows large, she gives birth and, by God, before she has had time to walk a dozen times through her Orangerie or take a pinch of snuff or two, she is preparing to give birth once more. I thought Sophie would be the last, but now we are to have another little brother or sister despite the fact that we have eleven already.’

‘At least His Majesty does his duty by the Queen, George.’

‘I doubt not that our noble mother would wish him to be a little less dutiful in that direction – although giving birth has now become a habit with her. Really, they are a ridiculous pair. What has the Court become? It is small wonder that people mock. Have you heard the latest?’

Frederick shook his head and his brother quoted:

‘Caesar the mighty King who swayed

The sceptre was a sober blade;

A leg of mutton and his wife

Were the chief comforts of his life.

The Queen composed of different stuff,

Above all things adored her snuff,

Save gold, which in her great opinion

Alone could rival snuff’s dominion.’

‘You see … that is the popular verdict on our King and Queen!’

‘Kings and queens are always targets for public ridicule, George.’

‘Criticism, not ridicule. I shall commit sins … royal sins, Fred. But I shall never be accused of doting on a pinch of snuff and caper sauce. Oh, when I look back I wonder how I have endured it for so long. Do you remember the frilled collars I used to be made to wear until only a short time ago? Frilled collars, Fred! A man of my age … a Prince … a Prince of Wales!’

Frederick put his head on one side and regarded his brother. Ever since he could remember he had admired George – the elder brother exactly one year his senior, seeming wise, bold and brilliant – everything that Frederick would like to have been; but he bore no malice, no resentment, because George would beat him to the crown by exactly twelve months; George, in Frederick’s eyes, was all that an elder brother should be, all that a prince and king should be; the English, in Frederick’s opinion, were going to be very fortunate to have George as their king.

He pondered this now. By God, he thought, for he imitated his brother’s mode of speech as everything else, they are going to find George IV a mighty change from George III. The Prince of Wales was contemptuous of their father – so would Frederick be. Caper sauce! thought Frederick with a smirk. When the Prince of Wales became king it would be very different. He would not have a plain wife; he would have a beauty, and perhaps mistresses. Kings should have mistresses; and George was constantly talking of women. He would sit for hours at the windows watching the maids of honour pass by, even though they were not a very exciting band. Their mother had seen to that. George had imitated her taking her pinch of snuff and murmuring in her German accent: ‘Nothing that can tempt the Princes!’ But there was one pretty one the Queen seemed to have overlooked. George had noticed her. Trust George.

But George was now thinking angrily of frilled collars, and he began to laugh, and so did Frederick, recalling that occasion when George had taken the frilled collar from his attendant’s hand and flung it at him, his pink and white cheeks suddenly purple with rage as he cried: ‘See how I am treated! I’ll have no more of this.’ And he had proceeded to tear the collar into shreds.

‘You were at once reported to our Papa,’ Frederick reminded him.

‘That’s my complaint,’ went on George, narrowing his eyes. ‘We were surrounded by spies then and we still are. I should have an establishment of my own. But they are too mean. That’s the point, Fred, too mean!’

‘I heard it said the other day that the Queen’s only virtue was decorum and her only vice avarice.’

‘There! That’s the way they are spoken of. They live like little squires, not like a king and queen. I’m heartily tired of this state of affairs.’

‘Still, they don’t flog us now.’

‘No. I put a stop to that.’

‘Every complaint that was taken to our father brought the same answer: “Flog ’em”.’

‘It makes me fume to think of it.’

‘But I remember, George, the day you snatched the cane from Bishop Hurd just as he was going to use it on you and how you said very sternly: “No, my lord Bishop, have done. There shall be no more of that!” ’

‘Nor was there,’ said George, laughing, ‘which makes me wonder whether if we had not stood out earlier against these tyrannies they might never have continued.’

The two young men began recalling incidents from their childhood. George could remember being dressed like a Roman centurion in a plumed helmet and being painted, with his mother and Frederick, by Mr Zoffany. Poor Fred was even worse off because when he had been a few months old they had made him Bishop of Osnaburg, which had so amused the people that the child was represented on all the cartoons in his Bishop’s mitre. George was particularly incensed by the wax model of himself at the age of a month or two which his mother still kept on her dressing table under a glass dome. This doting sentimentality went side by side with the stern way of bringing up children. ‘Completely Teutonic,’ said George. ‘By God, can’t we forget our German ancestry?’ Hours of study; shut off from contact with other people; the King’s special diet – meat only a few times a week and then with all the fat pared off; fish served without butter; the fruit of a pie without the crust, all specially worked out by the King who might appear in the nursery dining room at any time and discountenance poor Lady Charlotte Finch, who was in charge of them, if these rules were not carried out to the letter.

‘What a life we led!’ sighed the Prince of Wales. ‘And still do!’

‘Worst of all,’ added Frederick, ‘was growing our wheat.’

‘Farmer George would make little farmers of the whole family.’ George shivered distastefully, remembering their father’s taking them out to show them the little plots of land which he had allotted to them.

‘There,’ he had informed them as though, said the Prince of Wales, he were offering them the crown jewels. ‘There’s your own bit of land. Cultivate it, eh? Grow your own wheat … make your own bread. Nothing like tilling the land, eh, what?’

Nothing like tilling the land! Going out in all weathers; preparing the soil, sowing the corn, while the cold winds chapped their hands. The Prince of Wales was proud of his beautiful white hands. The heat of the sun spoiled his complexion. He was proud of that, too, because in spite of a tendency to develop pimples – which would pass – he had a beautiful soft skin, pink, very pink and white. And this precious skin must be burned in the summer sun while the Prince of Wales worked like a farm labourer. They had even been obliged to thresh their own corn and supervise the baking of their bread.

The indignity of it all! But it had to be done otherwise the cry would go up: ‘Flog ’em.’ And their parents – the King and Queen of England – would inspect the little loaves of bread that had been made with their own wheat and the Prince of Wales had been infuriated to see that George III paid more attention to this bread produced by his sons than to matters of state.

‘I must have an establishment of my own,’ declared the Prince.

‘It’s ridiculous that you should be denied it,’ soothed Fred.

‘I shall demand it.’ The Prince rose and was about to strut across the room when his eye caught a dainty figure crossing the green on her way to the Queen’s Lodge. He was immediately at the window. ‘By God,’ he cried. ‘She’s a beauty.’

Frederick murmured agreement.

She was small, dainty and dark; and suddenly it seemed as though by instinct she raised her eyes to the window where the two Princes stood watching her.

George immediately bowed. She stood still for a moment, dropping an enchanting curtsey and then turning away, sped across the lawn.

‘One of our mother’s maids of honour,’ said George.

‘How did our mother allow such a charmer to get in?’

‘Like Homer, she nodded,’ laughed the Prince. ‘And let us be thankful for it.’

‘Us?’

‘I, because I intend to know more of the lady; and you because you will be so delighted in my good fortune.’

‘Do you think, George …’

George looked astonished. Of course he would succeed with the lady. Wasn’t he the most handsome, the most desirable young man in England? Wasn’t he the Prince of Wales?

Frederick hastily agreed: ‘Yes, of course, George, but our father …’

‘By God,’ cried the Prince, ‘I thought I’d made it clear to you that I have had enough of this treatment. Everything is going to be different from now on. I am seventeen years old.’

Frederick, at sixteen, looked suitably impressed.

‘Time, dear brother, to have left childhood behind and if our miserly parents will not allow me an establishment at least I shall have a life of my own.’

In the Queen’s drawing room the royal family was assembled for the evening concert. These concerts took place twice a week, on the King’s orders, and every member of the family was expected to attend or the King would want to know the reason why. Only baby Sophie, not yet two years old, was spared. Even three-year-old Mary was there, seated on a foot-stool at her mother’s feet while Queen Charlotte, pregnant with the child who would shortly make its appearance and bring the number of royal offspring to thirteen, industriously worked on her embroidery.

The King was comparatively content on occasions like this. It was while he sat with his family – all outwardly docile – while he listened to the excellent performance of some piece by Handel, that he could forget his anxieties. There were many of these. The trouble growing steadily worse over the American colonies; the conflict among his ministers, the growing truculence of the Prince of Wales; and worst of all the voices in his head which would not leave him alone, which mischievously mocked him, starting a train of thought and suddenly snatching it away so that he could not remember what had been in his mind a moment before, malicious voices which whispered to him: ‘George, are you going mad?’

But here in the drawing room with his family seated quietly about him and the Queen looking placid, as she always did when pregnant, listening to the mastery of Mr Papendiek with his flute and Mr Cramer at the harpsichord and the Cervettos – father and son – miraculously performing on their violins, he felt more at peace than at any other time.

He let his eyes linger on the younger children; he sometimes wished that they did not have to grow up. The arch-trouble maker was his eldest son and as Frederick was his intimate companion that made a pair of them. Young William was only fourteen; he would get him off to sea as soon as possible; that would provide some necessary discipline. Twelve-year-old Edward should go to Germany – as should the other boys, except the Prince of Wales of course. There would be an outcry if he were sent out of England; and he had heard that his son had expressed very strong opinions about that too. George was anxious to forget that his great-great-grandfather, who had become George I, was a German who could speak no English. The Prince of Wales was trying to win the approval of the English people already. The King looked uneasily at his eldest son. A tall, good-looking boy, quite handsome, fair and fresh-complexioned; his only physical imperfection being the family tendency to fat. The King wondered whether the Prince had cajoled his attendants into leaving the fat on his meat or to giving him crust with fruit pies. The King was coming to the conclusion that his eldest son was capable of anything.

Why had George turned out so differently from what he had hoped? The rod had not been spared. He himself had had a hand in those beatings – and well deserved punishments they were – but he carried a memory with him of the flushed angry face of the Prince of Wales, and much resentment at the outrage to his dignity.

‘Necessary,’ murmured the King to himself. ‘Disobedience has to be beaten out, eh, what?’ And there was young Augustus with his asthma. That had to be beaten out of him too. He was six years old, but he was already well acquainted with the cane; and it certainly seemed to help him get his breath better.

A family could be a great trial – particularly a royal family. But when they were small they were charming. A great solace, thought the King, particularly the girls. He wished there had been more girls. Dear little Sophie was a delight; and as for Mary sitting there so solemnly at her mother’s feet, she looked like a little doll. It would have given him great pleasure to have picked her up and caressed her while he explained to her that Mr Handel’s music was the best in the world. But he must observe the decorum of the drawing room.

His feet tapped in time with the music, but his mind had darted from his children to the situation in America. They’ll capitulate, he was telling himself. They’ll sue for peace … the rebels! Lord North was uneasy and wanted to give up the Ministry, but he wasn’t going to let him. Who else was there but North? Chatham dead. Charles James Fox was making a nuisance of himself – he was even more of a menace than his father had been. Nothing went right abroad … and at home there was the intransigence of the Prince of Wales. Why could he not be at peace in the heart of his family? Charlotte was dull but he was accustomed to her by now; it was true he looked with pleasure on other women … women like Elizabeth Pembroke, of course, but his emotions were so much in control that he never went beyond looking. His subjects sneered at him for being a good husband. They laughed at his interest in making buttons; in his liking for the land. ‘Farmer George’ they called him, and ‘The Royal Button Maker’. There was scorn rather than affection in these appellations. The people forgot that when he was not with his family at Kew he was closeted with his ministers making decisions on how the campaign against the American rebels was to be conducted, making decisions as to how the armies were to be deployed; discussing naval tactics. Even now he was urging Lord Sandwich to hold the West Indies at all costs. How could we continue to meet our commitments if we lost our revenue from the sugar islands? And what of home defence? What about the aggressive French and the Spaniards?

Problems everywhere he looked, and the voices every now and then whispering in his head: ‘George, are you going mad?’

And why shouldn’t a king be a virtuous husband? What was there to sneer at in virtue? It seemed to George that whatever a king did he displeased his subjects if he were no longer young. Everywhere that young rascal, the Prince of Wales went he was cheered. What will become of him I cannot think, mused the King uneasily. Ideas chased themselves round and round in his head; like mice, he thought of them … fighting each other for his attention and when he tried to look closely at them they disappeared; they turned into mocking voices that reminded him of that dreadful time when he had been ill and had lost control of his mind. Pleasant things like his model farm at Kew, his buttons, his gardens, his baby daughters represented safety. If he could have escaped from all his troubles and lived quietly, the voices might be stilled. He glanced at Charlotte … good Queen Charlotte, unexciting but safe. Sometimes he was tormented by erotic dreams of women. Hannah Lightfoot, the Quaker girl with whom he had gone through a form of marriage when he had been very young and foolishly romantic, long since dead – for which ironically he must be grateful; for while she lived she represented a threat to his marriage with Charlotte, and that was a matter to shake the whole foundations of the monarchy, for if his sons were bastards … well, it did not bear thinking of and set the voices in his head working faster than ever. And then there was Sarah Lennox – Sarah Bunbury as she had become – whom he had wanted to marry, for whom he had as he had told Lord Bute ‘burned’; but he had been obliged to marry his plain German princess because all Hanoverian Kings married German princesses; it was a duty they must observe and when the time came young George would have to do the same. So instead of his dear Hannah Lightfoot whom he had so dangerously loved in his extreme youth, in spite of flighty Sarah Lennox for whom he had so burned, he was married to Charlotte.

He was a faithful husband, but there were times when his senses were in revolt. Why, he would demand of himself, should he be the one member of the family who observed a strict moral code? His brothers … his sister Caroline Matilda … He shuddered at the memory of them. Poor Caroline Matilda whom he had dearly loved and longed to protect was now dead – and he could not be sure that her death had been a natural one – after being involved in a storm of intrigue. Married to a near imbecile she had taken a lover and with him had been accused of treason. The lover had died barbarously and she, the Queen of Denmark, had come very near to the same fate, and would have succumbed to it but for the intervention of her affectionate brother – himself, the King of England. He had been deeply disturbed by the death of Caroline Matilda. Such events haunted him in nightmares. Poor Caroline Matilda had paid a high price for her follies.

With his brothers it was a very different matter.

William, Duke of Gloucester and Henry, Duke of Cumberland, had defiantly made their scandals and brazenly shown their indifference to disgrace. Yet they did not arouse half the resentment and mocking scorn which was poured on the King for being a good husband.

Cumberland had been involved in a most disgraceful affair with the Grosvenors because he had seduced Lady Grosvenor and had – young fool! – written letters to the woman which gave no doubt of the relationship between them. George remembered phrases from those letters which made his face burn with shame – and something like envy – even now. Accounts of intimate details when they had lain together ‘on the couch ten thousand times’. His brother, who had been brought up so carefully by their mother, watched over, never allowed to meet anyone but the immediate family in case he should be contaminated, had written those words! And as soon as they escaped from Mamma’s apron strings, there they were running wild, getting into scandals like that of Cumberland and the Grosvenors. And Lord Grosvenor had had the effrontery to sue a royal duke and to win his case. The jury had brought in a verdict of £10 000 plus costs of £3000 against the Duke of Cumberland which George had had to find with the help of Lord North … out of the King’s household expenses.

And as if that were not enough, Cumberland had tired of Lady Grosvenor by the time the scandal broke and was having an intrigue with the wife of a timber merchant – a very wealthy one it was true and fortunately for the royal purse, the timber merchant was too flattered by the royal Duke’s attentions to his wife to make trouble; but no sooner had that affair been freely discussed in the coffee and chocolate houses than Cumberland had a new love and this had turned out to be the most serious matter of all, for Mrs Anne Horton, who was the daughter of Lord Irnham, was intent on marriage, and as she had according to that gossip, Horace Walpole, ‘the most amorous eyes in the world and eyelashes a yard long’, Cumberland was fool enough to marry her.

This had caused the King so much anxiety that he had done what his mother had urged him to do before her death; he had set about bringing into force the Royal Marriage Act which forbade members of the royal family to marry without the King’s consent. Too late for Cumberland … and for Gloucester it seemed, for no sooner was the Marriage Act passed than Gloucester came forward to announce that for some years he had been secretly married to Lord Waldegrave’s widow – a mésalliance if ever there was one, for the lady was not only the illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole but her mother was said to have been a milliner!

‘Banish them from Court!’ George had cried. And Charlotte had declared that she would receive no daughters of milliners. So there was an unsatisfactory state of affairs with his brothers; and since his sons were so wild, the King did wonder what trouble would come through them.

Worry, worry, worry! thought the King, whichever way one turned. Oh, if only life were just living at Kew with Charlotte and the little ones, what a happy man he would be! Well perhaps not happy; he would always think of women like Hannah and Sarah and Elizabeth Pembroke with longing, but while he remained a faithful husband and lived according to his code of honour he could be serene.

The Queen was not listening to Mr Handel’s excellent music; she was thinking how handsome her eldest son was looking in his frogged coat and hoping the King would not notice how elegant he was and question the price of his garments. Charlotte was alarmed when she saw the lights of resentment against his father flare up in her son’s eyes. She had to face the fact that the relationship between them was scarcely harmonious. She had adored the Prince of Wales from the first time she had first held him in her arms – ‘A perfect specimen of a Royal Highness, your Majesty …’ Oh yes, indeed. He had bawled lustily, this wonder infant, and his health had always been of the best – except of course for the customary childish ailments. At the age of four it was true he had given her a great scare by contracting the smallpox. But he was such a healthy little rascal, he had even shrugged that aside. She liked to tell her attendants how when he was kept in bed someone asked if he were not tired of lying abed so long and he had replied: ‘Not at all. I lie and make reflections.’ The brilliance of the child! There was no doubt that he was a genius. He was clever at his lessons. He spoke and wrote several languages, French, German and Italian, fluently; he was familiar with Horace and delighted in Tacitus. He learned with ease and had a command of English which astounded his mother and dumbfounded his father on those occasions, which were becoming more frequent, when they were involved in verbal battles. The Queen was a little anxious about this beloved son and his relationship with his father. Oh dear, she sighed, I hope they are not going to follow the family custom and yet another Prince of Wales is going to quarrel with the King. Not George, she assured herself, not her handsome son George.

She often looked at the wax image on her dressing table and thought of him as a baby. He was no longer that. She sighed, wishing that he would visit her more often and now and then ask her advice.

What would she advise him on? On the sort of shoe buckle he should wear? He was mightily interested in shoe buckles. Or on the colour of his coat? Or about those matters which her woman Schwellenburg was always hinting at – his amours. ‘De Prince very much interests selfs in mädchens …’ declared Schwellenburg in her execrable English. ‘Nonsense, Schwellenburg, he is a natural gentleman.’

Was he too interested in young women? No, of course not. She refused to believe it. She refused to believe anything against George; and though she deplored the passing of his childhood when she had had some control over him, she was glad in a way that he was too old for whippings, for she had suffered to think of that delicate flesh being slashed with a cane.

Oh, George, come and speak to your mother, she implored silently. Not just as a duty. Not to bow, kiss the hand, murmur a few meaningless words and be off as quickly as you can. Not that, George, speak as a son to a mother.

She thought of the next child she would bear; but such happenings were commonplace with her. The thirteenth!

A boy or a girl? she wondered. What did it matter now? She already had seven boys and five girls. No one could say she had not given the country heirs. But she had not felt so well with this pregnancy. Perhaps it was time to give up child-bearing. The King would never agree to that, she was sure, and yet what had she been doing in the nineteen years since she came to England? Bearing children, was the answer. Thirteen of them. Oh, yes, the time had certainly come to call a halt. Not that she could bear to part with any of them. But with fine strong boys like George, Frederick and William at the head of the family – surely they had enough.

The Prince of Wales was pensive tonight. Was he wrapped up in the music? Frederick was beside him. They were inseparable those two and it was pleasant to see two brothers such friends. They seemed now as though they were sharing some secret. They were both watching one of the maids of honour who was in attendance. The Queen heard an echo of Schwellenburg’s voice: ‘De Prince very much interests self in mädchens.’ Oh, no, thought the Queen. George is a boy yet. He has always been taught such restraint.

George did not hear Mr Handel’s music, though he shared the family fondness for it. He was thinking: She is exquisite. So dainty. Such little hands and feet. He pictured her delight when he made known to her the fact that he was in love with her. He had discovered her name. It was Harriot Vernon. Harriot, Harriot, he murmured.

Fred nudged him gently with his foot because he had spoken her name aloud.

The music had stopped. The King led the applause and, under cover of it, George threw a glance at the young maid of honour which made her lower her eyes and smile. It was enough for the ardent Prince. His invitation was accepted. They must meet. Where?

‘You are watched,’ whispered Frederick.

‘Always, brother,’ sighed the Prince.

He turned to his equerry and friend, Lord Maiden, heir to the Earl of Essex.

‘I wish you to take a message to a lady,’ he murmured.

‘At Your Highness’s service.’

‘Come to my apartments,’ said the Prince. ‘I will give you all instructions there.’

Frederick listened with admiration. This time George was about to involve himself in a real love affair.

‘And how?’ asked Frederick, ‘can you possibly meet Harriot Vernon? You would be noticed. And you know we are forbidden even to speak to the maids of honour.’

George laughed.

‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I already have an assignation with the lady.’

‘Can that be true, George?’

‘Indeed yes. Maiden has taken a message for her from me and brought one back from her. We are going to meet in the gardens tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘Why do you wish to know, brother?’

‘Because I fear you will be seen.’

‘Not us. We shall meet in the most secluded spot … not far from the river. You know where I mean. We were saying only the other day few ever go there and you remember I remarked it would be a good spot for a lovers’ meeting.’

‘You think she will come?’

George drew himself up to his full height and looked most princely. ‘I know she will come, Frederick. I have her promise.’

‘And when she does …?’

George threw a kiss to his reflection in the mirror.

‘She can no more wait with patience for the encounter than I can.’

‘So tonight … at sunset …’

‘Tonight at sunset,’ echoed the Prince of Wales.

Mr Papendiek was playing the flute in the Queen’s drawing room at the request of the King. Not all the family were present. The Prince of Wales for one was absent. Frederick, seated next to his brother William, was thinking of George sneaking out to that remote spot in the gardens not far from the river. He was going to wear a greatcoat of Maiden’s to disguise himself and there he would await the coming of Harriot Vernon and then … Frederick’s eyes glistened. He hoped that all would go well and George would not be discovered. He wondered what would happen if he were. He looked at his father caught up in the music, and the Queen sitting placidly by. The child’s entry into the world could not long be delayed. It has been going on like this for years, thought Frederick; the family assembled here listening to the King’s favourite pieces of music; the only difference being that there was a new addition to the family. A new child to sit on the footstool at the Queen’s feet while the child who had just vacated it would sit upright on a chair and try not to fidget. So dull! thought Frederick. No change at all.

But a change was coming. He and his brother were growing up. William would soon be sent to sea. And because of this William was half excited, half apprehensive. ‘At least,’ William had said, ‘it’ll be an escape from Kew and Buckingham House.’ Lucky William, thought Frederick.

The King was in fact giving only half an ear to the music. He was thinking that soon he would have to leave Kew for London. He could not enjoy the sequestered life for long at a time. The dark, clever, rather gross face of Charles James Fox came into his mind. Always plaguing him. The Foxes always had. As though they bore him a grudge for not marrying Sarah. Charles James Fox was her nephew and if ever there was a troublemaker it was that man.

And the American affair … and the French and the Spaniards … and the Government …

I’ll put them from my mind, he told himself. I’ll feel all the better for a little respite from affairs. Work all the better when I do get back to business, eh, what? Ought to be on better terms with young George. Can’t have trouble in the family. He didn’t want to talk to George. George was too smart with words. Had an answer for everything. A pleasant game of chess, that was what he would like. Even so, George invariably beat him nowadays. Nevertheless they could get a good game.

Where was George? George ought to be present on a family occasion like this.

Mr Papendiek’s solo was over; the King led the applause and when that came to an end and the musicians waited for his further instructions he declared: ‘I should like a game of chess. Tell the Prince of Wales that I wish him to join me in a game of chess.’

Frederick was dismayed. They were going to search for the Prince of Wales and would be unable to find him, unless they went to that remote spot in the gardens and then … what would they discover? He had feared something like this. He had wanted George to make some provision for such an emergency but George had merely shrugged aside the possibility of discovery. And now … it seemed inevitable.

‘Where is the Prince, eh, what?’ the King was already demanding as the chess board had been set out and he himself was putting the ivory pieces in their places.

One of the Prince’s attendants came in looking harassed.

‘Well, well, where is he? Eh? Eh?’ demanded the King.

‘Your Majesty, the Prince is not in his apartments.’

Frederick waited for no more. He slipped out of the drawing room and out of the Lodge and made his way with all speed to that remote spot in the gardens. It was dark now but there was enough light from the moon to show Frederick the two figures embracing.

‘George! George!’ cried Frederick. ‘For God’s sake … George.’

The lovers parted and George, seeing his brother, cried: ‘Good God, Fred, what is it?’

The King is demanding your presence immediately. He wants a game of chess.’

George cursed chess vehemently and stopped himself in time cursing the King. Harriot, trembling with anxiety, looked appealingly at her lover.

‘There’s nothing to be done but return with all speed and play this game of chess,’ muttered the Prince. ‘Here, Fred, take this.’ It was Lord Maiden’s greatcoat with which he had disguised himself. He turned to Harriot and embraced her warmly. George would be a lover in any circumstances, thought Frederick admiringly. Even now while he was on the verge of exposure he was charmingly protective to the lady. ‘Fred, see that Miss Vernon reaches her apartments in safety.’ Frederick bowed. If he were involved in this affair he would not blame George. It had always been thus between them. They had always protected each other, at whatever cost to themselves, and took loyalty for granted.

So with Lord Maiden’s overcoat over one arm Frederick conducted the lady to a back staircase of the maids’ house while George hurried to the Queen’s drawing room where the King was impatiently glowering at the chess board.

‘Takes you a long time to get here, eh, what?’ He looked into the flushed face of his son. The elegant boots were just a little muddy. Many eyes noted this. There was a whispering behind fans, a few quietly spoken words among the attendants.

The Prince had for some time been ogling the only pretty maid of honour in his mother’s entourage and already someone had reported seeing Prince Frederick sneaking out of the King’s presence to warn his brother and later conducting the lady back to her apartments.

The Prince played a reckless game of chess which gave the King the advantage. But the latter did not enjoy this. What’s the young blade up to, eh, what? the King asked himself.

And all through the household they were whispering of the Prince’s love affair.

The next day in the same spot the Prince successfully accomplished the seduction of Miss Vernon; but by this time the affair was palace gossip.

Harriot Vernon went about her duties with the rapt expression of one who may have lost her virtue but had gained the whole world; and when the Prince of Wales was not seeking private interviews with the lady he was in his apartments writing verses to her.

How could Charlotte have allowed such a charmer to appear in the Prince’s orbit, people were asking each other. Because she was about to give birth? Nonsense, this little operation was as normal to her as breathing. Still, she had slipped, and there could be a real scandal if the reckless Harriot should prove to be fertile as well as romantic.

Schwellenburg, bustling about her apartments, tending the frogs and toads of which she made pets and kept in glass cages, grumbled to herself about the Prince of Wales. ‘Ah,’ she muttered, ‘you willen zees tricks do.’ And she tapped her snuff box and listened to the croaking which followed. She was proud of having taught her little darlings to croak at the tap of a snuff box. ‘They vise little frogs,’ she would say. ‘Very vise frogs. Good little toads … not like the Prince of Vales. Must talk to the Queen of bad Prince, little frog. Not talk to self.’

And she did talk to the Queen. The Prince of Wales was having a love affair with that wicked young woman Harriot Vernon whom she had never wanted in the royal apartment, and p.p.—2 if the Queen had listened to her would never have been there.

Charlotte was not fond of Schwellenburg, but one must have someone to whom one could speak German now and then. Schwellenburg had been with her ever since she had come to England and in any case was a habit now. The woman was arrogant; she made trouble; she was the most unpopular servant in the royal household … yet she remained in the Queen’s service, bullying the Queen’s women, disgusting them with her ‘pets’, and insisting on their playing long and tedious games of cards with her.

But she was under the delusion that the Queen could not do without her and that she was in charge of the Queen’s household.

‘Harriot Vernon is in dream … forget all … remember nothing. Makes loff with Herr George … in the gardens and in his bed. Disgusting.’

The Queen said: ‘There is some mistake.’

‘No mistake,’ contradicted Schwellenburg with the boldness of an old servant. ‘Haf seen with self’s eyes.’

Charlotte thought: ‘Of course it is true. And what will the King say? There’ll be trouble … great trouble. Of course he is growing up … and so handsome. Surely there never was any young man as handsome as my George. It’s not his fault exactly. He is so attractive. Oh, why doesn’t he tell me what he is doing. He never comes to see me as a son should to his mother. He confides in Frederick … and perhaps William … But never his mother. This must not come to the ears of the King.’

She was loath to believe the affair had gone very far. He was a boy still. He may have been casting eyes on the girl; but that was as far as it had gone, she was sure.

She sent for her son, who came reluctantly and looked a little sulky, she noticed. He had the Hanoverian rather heavy jaw which, unless the Prince was smiling, gave a sullen look to an otherwise charming face.

‘I don’t see enough of you,’ she told him. ‘I daresay you are very occupied.’

‘Your Majesty knows the plans laid down by my father. It gives us little time to do anything but follow his orders.’

Oh, yes, he was resentful. She wondered whether she dare tell the King that the boys were growing up and should no longer be treated as children. When had George ever taken any notice of her? When she had first come to England George’s mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales, had made it very clear that no interference was expected from her. And George had supported his mother. Bear healthy children and that is all that will be expected of you. And they could not say she had not fulfilled their expectations. But listen to her advice on any subject, treat her like an intelligent being? Never. The only place in which she had any power was her own intimate circle. She could dismiss her maids; she could go over the accounts and find them too great; she could make her economies and take her snuff and look after the younger children. There her duty ended. That had been made clear to her. So it was no use her thinking she could speak to the King about George.

But she could speak to George – and she was going to find out if these rumours were true.

‘So you have no time to visit your mother,’ she said wistfully.

‘Very little, Madam, very little.’

How haughty he was and how she loved him! She had difficulty in assuring herself that this glorious young Apollo was the fruit of her plain little body. She and George between them had produced this beautiful creature! Stolid George and plain Charlotte. It seemed incredible to her. If he would confide in her, if he would show a little affection … she would do everything in her power to give him what he wanted.

But he showed so clearly that he had no need of her. Yet she would have to prevent his quarrelling with his father. He would have to be made to realize that even he must not indulge in a love affair under their very noses.

‘You find life a little … monotonous?’ she asked.

He inclined his head and suppressed a yawn.

‘I have often thought,’ went on the Queen, ‘that our maids of honour lead very dull lives.’

‘I agree with Your Majesty,’ said the Prince. ‘How dull merely to be one of a formal procession from the presence chamber to the drawing room and never allowed to speak unless one is spoken to.’

‘Some may have nothing worthy to say.’

The Prince had warmed to his subject. ‘Poor ladies! What a life! To make an occasional one of large hoops in a royal coach. I believe they make two new court suits a year and now and then appear in a side box in a royal play.’

‘But she does not have to pay for her seat at the theatre,’ the Queen reminded him.

He looked at her slyly.

‘Save gold, which in her own opinion

Alone could rival snuff’s dominion.

he thought. Trust his mother to think a free seat compensated for a good deal.

‘I agree, Your Majesty, that a maid of honour goes to concerts and plays … and oratorios free. Your Majesty will no doubt remind me that she does not have to pay her physician and gets her medicines for nothing.’

‘You have forgotten one important thing.’

‘No doubt, for the acts of a maid of honour formed no part of my education.’

’I will tell you one,’ replied the Queen. ‘Perhaps you have recently had experience of this. She may flirt with Princes and go to meet them in the moonlight. Is that also … free?’

The Prince was for once discountenanced, and his mother was certain now that Schwellenburg’s hints were true. The Prince had been meeting Harriot Vernon in the moonlight. Heaven knew how far this affair had gone, but if it reached the King’s ears His Majesty would be furious. She was terrified of the King’s anger; it took him so oddly nowadays and she was always afraid of where it would end.

She must act quickly and for once she dismissed the Prince. It was usually he who pleaded his duty to the King and departed as speedily as he could.

As soon as he had left her she sent for Harriot Vernon. The girl stood before her – beautiful, radiant and – guilty.

‘I have sent for you, Miss Vernon,’ said the Queen, ‘to tell you that your services are no longer required at Court.’

‘But Your Majesty …’

The Queen looked surprised. ‘Call Madam von Schwellenburg,’ she commanded.

‘Your Majesty …’

‘I have said, call Madam von Schwellenburg.’

Schwellenburg, listening at the door, had little need to be called. She swept in.

‘Your Majesty calls of me,’ she said.

‘Miss Vernon is leaving us … at once,’ said the Queen. ‘Pray help her to leave … immediately.’

‘Vill see to selfs,’ promised Schwellenburg, and Harriot had no recourse but to leave with her, and the German woman stood over her while she packed her bags and herself ordered the carriage.

Within an hour of that interview with the Queen Harriot Vernon had left Court.