Perdita's Prince

Mr Fox calls on Mr Sheridan

THAT WAS THE first of many meetings. The Prince declared that never had he been so happy in his life. He lived for the excitement of these encounters; and the knowledge that at any moment during them he could run into disaster only made them the more exciting.

Kew Gardens. Eel Pie Island. Forever more, he declared, these will be paradise to me.

Each encounter was an adventure in itself. Donning a dark coat he would slip out of the Dower Lodge and make his way to the appointed spot; there had been one occasion when it had been necessary to disguise himself – and Frederick – as watchmen. How they had laughed as they had planned climbing the walls and slipping away.

While this provided the romantic adventure it stirred up all the resentment in the Prince’s mind. Why should it be necessary? he constantly demanded of Frederick. That they enjoyed it was beside the point. He was the Prince of Wales and he had to leave the Palace like a thief. And why – because of their father – that spoilsport of a king who thought the height of happiness was to go farming and make buttons and plans for the nursery, drink lemonade and play backgammon and who had never been unfaithful to his wife. Not that the Prince believed in infidelity. He would be faithful to Perdita until death, but at the same time Fred had to agree that their father was a dull dog and it would have been more natural – their mother being as she was – if he had a mistress or two.

Frederick agreed as he always did with his brother; and threw himself into the nocturnal adventures as though they were his own.

And then the meetings with Perdita – herself wrapped in a dark cloak – to walk under the trees, arms entwined, talking of the future, stopping every now and then to embrace while Frederick kept watch on one side and Maiden and the lady’s maid on the other.

This was wonderful at first but it could not satisfy an ardent lover to wander about the leafy glades of Kew, more often than not having to take a hasty farewell because of intruders.

There must be a better arrangement, and between them George, Frederick and Maiden decided that they should make use of Eel Pie Island.

‘It would be so much easier if Your Highness rowed over to the Island and Mrs Robinson was there to meet you.’

Frederick said: ‘The inn people wouldn’t dare. What if it reached my father’s ears?’

There were ways and means, Maiden pointed out. For instance, need the innkeeper and his servants know. They could be told it was a gentleman of high rank who visited them and if the Prince was sombrely clad and kept his face in shadow as much as possible, need they guess? He, Maiden, would make all the arrangements; and it was surprising what a little persuasion could do if it was backed up by the right sort of ‘appreciation’.

The Prince said it was an excellent idea. Maiden must arrange it right away.

So Malden dropped a few bribes here and there and a new trysting place was found for the lovers.

In the finest room the inn could provide they met while Prince Frederick sat outside the inn keeping a lookout and Malden, with him, thought enviously of the Prince’s pleasure; and Mrs Armistead took careful note of every little incident so that she might not fail in her report to Mr Fox.

While the Prince was sporting with his mistress an alarming situation had sprung up. Lord George Gordon who had become President of the Protestant Association of England was stirring the capital to riot. Lord George – brother of Sarah Lennox’s lover, the man by whom she had had an illegitimate child – was an insignificant fellow who determined to draw attention to himself by some means, and as he could not do so by his brilliance chose this way. He led his followers with shouts of ‘No Popery’ and the King was horrified to discover how quickly a crowd of ordinary people defending what they believe to be right can be turned into a mob bent on destruction.

During the hot days of June the trouble increased. The homes of Catholics were burned to the ground; so were their places of worship; those members of Parliament who had supported the Catholic Relief Bill were similarly treated and many of them lost their homes; then the mob began attacking prisons. It was shocking to discover how quickly a great city could be in the grip of terror. The Palace of St James’s itself and Buckingham House were in danger, and the guard had to be doubled.

The King remained in London; he was not going to leave the soldiers to protect his palaces while he remained at Kew. North suggested that the Prince should be in London. He was popular and his presence might have some effect on the people. The implication being, thought the King sadly, that he himself was not popular. What a sad state of affairs when a man who tried to live honourably and virtuously earned the dislike of his subjects while a young rip who thought of nothing but his own pleasure should have their regard!

But he would not have the Prince in London.

‘What, heir to the throne placed in danger? You’d have that, eh, what?’

‘What of Your Majesty?’

‘My responsibility! Let the Prince stay with his tutor at Kew. Only a boy yet.’

Little did he guess that the boy was at that moment stealing out of the Dower Lodge to row over to Eel Pie Island and his mistress.

The King felt ill. A crisis always set his head zooming with hundreds of thoughts and ideas which he could not always comprehend. And such a crisis! Bloodshed. The stupid destruction that a mob of blood-crazy illiterate men and women could bring about, people who scarcely knew what they were fighting against – for it was not the members of the Protestant Association who were causing this trouble; it was the mob that rag-taggle in any big city – beggars, thieves, prostitutes whose mean and sordid lives were brightened by a disaster such as this. He knew this and he had to stop it. But he would not allow the Prince of Wales to risk his life in London.

The King knew too when he went among the soldiers who were guarding the Palace that at any moment someone might kill him. It was by no means a wild impossibility. He thought of an occasion little over a year ago when, on alighting from his chair at the back stairs of St James’s a woman had run up to him and seized him. He had not been afraid. He was never alarmed at such times. He felt no fear when he showed himself among the soldiers. It was not physical courage he lacked; there were things of which he was afraid – the loss of the Colonies, financial difficulties, government dissensions, the vices of his brothers and his sons, the voices in his head – but never of sudden death which could come perhaps to a king more likely than to one of his subjects. And this woman? He had spoken to her gently. He was always gentle with his poorer subjects, looking upon them as children to be cared for. ‘What do you want, my good woman?’ he had asked her. He would never forget the wildness of her eyes, the blankness in them. ‘I am Queen Beck,’ she told him. ‘Get off the throne. It’s mine.’ Poor, poor creature! ‘Do not harm her,’ he had ordered. ‘She is mad, poor soul.’ He had a passionate desire to protect the mad from those who might be harsh with them. It was like his desire to protect the Quakers. Perhaps that was why he had been so ready to give his consent to the Catholic Reform Bill. Religious tolerance! Hannah had always wanted it for her own Society of Friends.

But this was not the time for brooding on the past. Action was needed. The riots must be stopped. If they were not, this could be the prelude to civil war. A war between Catholics and Protestants. It must never be. He wanted his country to be known as one where religious tolerance prevailed.

He sent for North and told him that the disturbances must be stopped without delay.

‘We must get the better of these rebels before further damage is done,’ he declared.

Lord North agreed on this, but was nervous.

George himself was undecided because he knew that only by calling out the military and proclaiming martial law could the rioting be stopped. It was a great decision to make and he was the only one who could make it. He alone could order his army to fire on his own subjects.

A sleepless night. Pacing up and down. The voices in his head were silent. There was only one problem with which to grapple. He forgot his anxiety about the Prince of Wales. He forgot everything but the need to stop the Gordon Riots.

The rioters were marching on the Bank of England. They must not be allowed to destroy this as they had Newgate Jail.

The King gave the order. The troops went into action. Several hundred people were killed but the Gordon Riots had been brought to an end.

The riots over, the King was surprised to find that his subjects were ready to give him back a little of that affection which over the years he had somehow lost. His action in giving the order to fire on the mob was approved of because it had been successful in dispersing the mob and ending the riots.

George felt strong. He was indeed that King which his mother had constantly urged him to be. There was no strong man to guide him. William Pitt was dead; he had a son who had yet to prove himself. Grenville was no longer in power, nor was Grafton. Lord Bute had, when he first came to the throne, stood beside him and he had never felt safe without him; his mother had advised him on every action he took. Now there was only Lord North and, firm friends that they were, the King did not expect great brilliance from North – only loyal friendship.

So he would govern alone, make his own decisions as he had over the Gordon Riots so satisfactorily. He was glad. He would work better on his own.

‘Could never abide a lot of magpies chattering round me,’ he said aloud. ‘I’ll stand alone. I’ll show them I am their King, eh.’

In such a mood he went down to Kew for a breath of country air and a little peace and quiet.

Charlotte was glad to see him – very obviously pregnant now. He told her about the riots, for now that they were over she could offer no interference.

He sat with the children and told them what had happened. He had played such a decisive part and it was good for them to learn how affairs were conducted.

He took young Mary on his knee and looking round at the pink faces, the big eyes, the heavy chins – they all looked so much alike and so like himself – he explained how he came to his decision, through prayer and meditation, which was how they should all solve their problems.

The Queen said that Lord George Gordon was clearly mad and in her opinion mad people could not be blamed for their actions.

‘Your Majesty will remember when we were driving through Richmond in an open chaise … now it would be just after the birth of William …’ Fifteen-year-old William looked very pleased with himself. ‘And Charlotte …’ The Queen smiled at her fourteen-year-old daughter … ‘was on the way and had not yet put in her appearance.’ She remembered all her dates through the births of her children. ‘Yes, we were riding through Richmond, your Papa and myself, when a man and woman began to shout at us. And then … the woman threw something at me. It landed right in my lap. What do you think it was?’

‘A knife!’ shouted William.

‘Flowers,’ cried ten-year-old Elizabeth.

Augustus, the seven-year-old, began to gasp and tried to hide the fact. He did not want to get a beating for not being able to breathe because the King believed the cane was a cure for asthma.

‘Both wrong,’ cried the Queen. ‘It was her shoe. She had taken it off to throw it at me.’

‘Wasn’t that wicked?’ asked William.

‘It was wrong, but your Papa was kind and said there was to be no punishment. She could in fact have been put to death.’

William whistled.

‘Pray do not do that,’ said the Queen. ‘It sounds like a stable boy.’

The King frowned and William immediately tried to efface himself. He did not want to be sentenced to a caning. Nor did the Queen wish him to be, so she immediately began telling another story which she knew would please the King.

‘I remember once when a basket was left at one of the gates. I wonder whether His Majesty remembers …’ Queen Charlotte looked at her husband and went on quickly: ‘But of course your Papa has so much to remember … affairs of state … he cannot be expected to remember these little things.’

‘What was in the basket, Mamma?’ asked William.

‘Can you guess?’

The children all had a guess each but none of them was right.

‘A little baby,’ cried the Queen triumphantly. ‘It was about two months old.’

‘Was it a present for Papa?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘Oh … no … not for Papa specially. But your Papa found a home for it.’

‘And did it live happily ever after?’

‘If it was good,’ said the Queen piously. ‘And what do you think it was called?’

The children guessed again, several of them suggesting their own names.

‘It was a boy,’ the Queen told them. ‘George … George was the name. The same as your Papa’s.’

‘And our brother’s,’ William reminded her.

There was silence. The King looked round the family circle as though he had not before noticed the absence of his eldest son.

‘It’s a pity that our eldest son does not see fit to honour a family occasion with his presence.’

‘Frederick is not here either,’ the Queen reminded him, as though excusing the Prince.

‘Where George is, Frederick will be,’ William told them.

The Queen silenced her son with a look.

‘Would Your Majesty care for a little music?’

‘I want to know why the Prince of Wales and his brother behave as though they are apart from the rest of us.’

‘They are growing up,’ sighed the Queen.

‘They should have been here.’ The King looked round him and one of his pages immediately came to him.

‘Go to the Dower Lodge at once,’ he said. ‘Tell the Prince of Wales and Prince Frederick that I command their attendance without delay. Did you hear that? Without delay, eh, what?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The page disappeared and the King glowered into space, and neither the Queen’s attempts to amuse him nor the chatter of his children could divert him from his irritation with his eldest son.

Nor was his mood improved when shortly afterwards the page returned to report that neither the Prince nor his brother could be found in the Dower Lodge.

The King looked at his watch. ‘Is this not the time when they should be doing their private study?’

‘On a fine afternoon like this they might decide to do it in the gardens,’ suggested the Queen.

The King replied: ‘If they are shirking their lessons …’ And he immediately felt frustrated, for if he attempted to question his sons, George would in a few minutes show him that he was so much more educated than his father and would immediately have the advantage. He had that way with him – which was growing more and more obvious – of mocking his father without saying anything that could be complained of. Young George was clever. He had been able to learn his lessons with the utmost ease; he had actually liked Greek and Latin and languages and literature and poetry; he could talk about pictures and artists in a way his father could not understand. Yet he never seemed to try as his father had. The King’s mind went back to those hours in the schoolroom when he had worked so hard and assimilated so little; and there was George, his son, even outstripping some of his tutors as though that was something he did without effort while he went on with the serious business of plaguing his father.

‘The Prince is a natural scholar,’ said the Queen quietly. ‘I don’t think he ever shirks his lessons. He likes them. Perhaps having completed their work they have taken a stroll. That is it.’

‘There is a time for strolling,’ muttered the King. ‘I’ll speak to the young puppy tomorrow.’

The Queen was relieved. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.

Mrs Papendiek, the wife of one of the flautists who was in attendance on the Queen, wondered whether she ought to tell Her Majesty that something very strange was going on in the Dower House. She had actually seen the young Princes scaling the wall; and they went off regularly somewhere along the river.

Should I? Mrs Papendiek asked herself.

The Prince would be annoyed with her. She had mentioned the affair to her husband; he had said: ‘Don’t do anything to upset the Prince. Once he’s of age there’ll be no holding him. The King won’t have the power to either. See and say nothing. It’s safer.’

Yes, thought Mrs Papendiek, seeing the increased colour in the King’s face and noting that he was speaking more quickly than normally, better to hold one’s tongue.

The Queen said: ‘I am sure Your Majesty would like a little music.’

The King agreed that he would, so the Queen soothed him by her skilful performance on the harpsichord.

It was July.

‘Next month,’ declared the Prince, ‘I shall be eighteen years old. Even the King cannot deny me my privileges then.’

‘Ah!’ sighed Perdita. ‘How I look forward to the day when we no longer have to meet in this clandestine way.’

‘You shall have a fine establishment. The best house we can find.’

Perdita sighed and the Prince hurried on: ‘You will be so happy in it and I shall be there all the time. The whole world shall know that it is the place where I most long to be.’

Perdita he knew felt her position deeply. She was a good woman and believed that a union could only be perfect if it were legal. The Prince hated legality. Already he was hedged in by rules, and to him no relationship could be as perfect as that which existed between himself and Perdita.

She could become melancholy easily, wondering if, in being with him in this way, she was sinful. The Prince did not wish to consider sin. He was interested only in pleasure. He would do everything in the world to please her, he assured her, but he thought that when they were together they should be happy.

For fear that she would brood on the loss of her reputation, for as soon as she was set up in that establishment which the Prince would provide for her, the whole of the Court – the whole of London – would know of their relationship, the Prince brought in a grievance of his own.

‘I could not allow you to continue on the stage.’

She was silent.

‘Oh, no, no,’ he went on. ‘I do not wish you to be paraded for other men to look at, to comment on.’

‘But … it is my living.’

The Prince laughed. She was not going to think about money again. When he was eighteen he would have an income, an establishment. By God, his Perdita forgot that the man who adored her, worshipped her, who would be faithful to the end of his days, was the Prince of Wales. No sordid considerations of money! No talk of working for a living! He would not allow her to continue on the stage. She was for him … for him alone.

She was not displeased at this display of authority. When the whole of London knew the position it would have been a little humiliating to appear at the theatre, to be gazed at while everyone pictured her with the Prince. No, she was not displeased at all.

But she performed a touching renunciation scene. She told him of how Mr Garrick himself had prophesied a great future for her; of the days when he himself tutored her; and would Mr Garrick have concerned himself with anything short of genius? The Prince should have seen her Juliet. ‘Pale pink satin. Spangles of silver. White feathers. But the most becoming scene was the last. My transparent gauze veil fell from the back of my head to my feet.’

‘Yes, and you looked like an angel. But no more stage. Do you think I will allow anyone to gaze at you in breeches!’

‘Ah, those breeches parts! Some thought them my best. But all this I will give up … for you.’

More lovemaking. More professions of eternal devotion.

When she was home in her bedroom she told Mrs Armistead: ‘I am looking forward to the adjusting of His Royal Highness’s establishment for the public avowal of our mutual attachment.’

It was mid-morning when Mrs Armistead, after having given her mistress a dish of chocolate in bed, said she must go out as there were several items she needed such as ribbons, rouge and patches.

She might be gone for a couple of hours but in view of Madam’s being so late the previous night, she was sure the rest in bed would do her the world of good and she would of course wish to be fresh for the trip to Eel Pie Island.

Wrapping her cloak about her and pulling its hood well over her head she left the house and, instead of making her way to the market, went straight to St James’s Street where Mr Fox had his lodgings. His servant, knowing that his master always received her whatever the hour, ushered her in and went to tell Mr Fox that she had arrived.

‘Bring the lady in,’ cried Mr Fox; and Mrs Armistead was a little astonished to be taken into his bedroom.

‘I rarely rise before eleven,’ he told her; and indeed he was wearing a linen nightgown which was none too clean. Mrs Armistead wondered angrily why his servants did not take the soiled nightgown away and put out a new one. His hair, which was black and thick, was dishevelled.

He laughed at her dismay for although she had believed she was hiding it, she had for a second betrayed it.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘if I were female you might with reason call me a slut.’

‘Sir!’

He laughed at her and putting his hands on her shoulders studied her face.

‘Do you know, Mrs Armistead, at one time I, my friend Richard Fitzpatrick and my cousin the Earl of Carlisle were regarded as the three best dressed men in London? Times change and we change with them, eh. Look at me now. You could not, in reason, call me the best dressed man in London.’

‘I would not call you dressed at all, sir.’

‘Stop calling me sir,’ he said. ‘And I refuse to call you Mrs Armistead.’

‘My name was Elizabeth Bridget Cane before I married Mr Armistead.’

‘Well Lizzie, now you have formally introduced yourself and I am very pleased that we have become good friends.’

‘I came to tell you that Mrs Robinson is going to give up the stage.’

He grimaced. ‘Sheridan won’t like that. He’s playing to excellent business. Everyone wants to see Mrs Robinson. It’s rumoured, but the audience is not certain, that she is the mistress of the Prince of Wales.’

‘When the Prince has his establishment he is going to set her up in a house.’

Fox nodded.

‘Their little affair goes according to plan. There are other matters.’

He was looking at her intently. She had known it must come to this; and when it did of course this would not be the end. There was more between them than a passing desire for a handsome lady’s maid on his side and the need not to offend an important man on hers.

As he came nearer she did not draw back. He took her hand and she let it rest in his.

Sheridan sat in his office at the theatre surrounded by playbills, plays which had been sent in for reading, and bills which he chose to ignore because he knew he could not settle them.

He was surprised when Mr Charles James Fox was announced. They were acquainted and had an admiration for each other; but as yet their interests had been divergent. Sheridan followed political affairs with a mild interest; Fox was an occasional visitor to the theatre; but Sheridan, himself a Whig, had been impressed by Fox’s adroit manoeuvres and Fox by The School for Scandal and The Rivals.

But why, wondered Sheridan, had the important gentleman seen fit to call upon him?

‘Mr Fox, sir, at your service,’ he said.

‘At yours, sir. I trust this is not an inconvenient hour to call?’

‘Any hour would be convenient to receive a visit from Mr Fox.’

Fox laughed to imply they could dispense with trite formalities.

‘Business is booming, I see,’ said Mr Fox. He was well aware that although business boomed so did Sheridan’s debts. Sheridan was a gambler and a gay liver; moreover, he was of an intellectual calibre to match Fox’s. Such kindred spirits were rare.

Sheridan, knowing that Fox would be well aware of his financial difficulties, shrugged his shoulders and nodded in the direction of the pile of bills. No need to excuse himself to a man who had been – was constantly – in a similar position.

‘So tiresome,’ said Mr Fox, ‘to have to pay for one’s pleasures!’

‘But if one did not make a pretence of doing so we should have every Tom, Dick and Harry scrambling for them. Would there be enough to go round?’

‘I do not think it would be beyond the powers of our invention to create new ones, Mr Sheridan.’

Sheridan opened a cupboard and brought out two glasses.

Without speaking he filled them and handed one to Fox.

‘Your very good health, sir, and good fortune to the project you have come here to discuss with me this day.’

Fox laughed. ‘Mr Sheridan, your talents are considerable. Words are your forte. The same thing applies to me. To be brief I have come to suggest that you stand for Parliament.’

‘Did I hear you aright, sir?’

‘As a Whig. You are a Whig, sir. No doubt of that.’

Sheridan lifted his glass. ‘To wine, women and Whigs, sir.’

Mr Fox drank and said: ‘So, Mr Sheridan?’

‘Mr Fox, sir. I am sitting here among my accounts, doing my theatre business with no thought of taking on the office of Lord of the Treasury.’

‘You will not be hurried into that position quite yet, Mr Sheridan.’

‘But no one enters politics surely without dreaming of the Great Seal. It is the Field Marshal’s baton … it is the Admiral’s … Forgive me, sir, but what is the insignia of our sea lords? Is it the holy grail?’

‘Dream of it then, Mr Sheridan! Dream of it! You are too clever a man to concentrate all your efforts into one undertaking. Your plays … your theatre … yes, excellent for an ordinary man. But you are not an ordinary man, Mr Sheridan. You have a touch of genius. Give it to your country.’

‘Are there not too many at this moment offering their genius to the country? See what such genius has done. Lost us the American Colonies, for one thing.’

‘Alas, politicians are legion; genius is rare. North is the biggest blundering idiot that ever held the Great Seal. And HM clings to him. Why? Because he sees himself as a Supreme Ruler. In that addled head of his he’s thinking of Divine Rights. North and the King. By God, what a pair. I have to put the King and his Tories out of office, Mr Sheridan; and I can only do that by putting the Whigs in.’

‘Surely the people are behind the Government.’

‘Mr Sheridan, you will have to learn your politics. The people will be Tory one day and Whig the next and it is our task to see that they are Whig the day after and the week after and the year after. How do we do it? By teaching them, educating them, by making them realize what a holy mess we’re in, what the loss of the colonies mean to us.’

‘We?’

‘Those of us who have the power to do so. Men who are on familiar and caressing terms with the English language.’

‘Like Mr Fox for instance.’

‘Mr Fox, sir, and Mr Sheridan.’

‘A place in politics … a Member of Parliament,’ mused Sheridan.

Fox leaned forward. ‘If the right party were in power it could be a high place in the Government. It would be a different life from this …’ Fox waved his hand with a faintly disparaging gesture. ‘You would be the friend of anyone you chose to meet. I personally would see that you were a member of Brooks’ … or any club you fancied. You would be welcome in the most noble houses. Oh, I know these are the outward trappings of power … of no importance in themselves. But they are a measure of success.’

‘You speak as though Power is the ultimate goal of all men.’

‘Men such as you and myself, Mr Sheridan. We were sent in the world with our talents. Is it not incumbent upon us to use them?’

‘I am using mine. I think I have written plays which will be performed a hundred years hence. If the playmaker Sheridan is not forgotten after he’s dead is that not enough?’

‘It depends on what talents you arrived with, Mr Sheridan. A brilliant playwright … yes. And the theatre will rejoice in that talent for years. Generations will rise up and call you blessed. But this country is rushing ahead to disaster. Pitt saw it, but he was defeated by the gout and changing his title from The Great Commoner to Chatham. Politicians can’t afford to make mistakes. By God, Mr Sheridan, it’s the most exciting game on earth. Loo, Faro, Macao, Hazard! You haven’t gambled until you’ve played politics.’

Sheridan’s eyes were shining and Fox knew that he would achieve his purpose.

He leaned forward. ‘This, Mr Sheridan, sir, is a turning point in British politics. Our monarchs carry a certain power. True they cannot act without the backing of their governments but the power is there. The King – between men of good sense – is far from clever. I won’t say he’s a fool … not for fear of committing lèse-majesty but because it is not entirely true. George is a simpleton. He should have been a farmer. A good man let us say … who has never known the pleasures of life, and who feels it his duty to see that these are kept from others. A failing of the virtuous, Mr Sheridan, as I’m sure you will agree. But what HM fails to see is that the pleasures a man indulges in are not his whole life. A man can be a brilliant politician in the House, a lecher in the bedchamber and a gambler at the clubs. A politician can set the country’s economy to rights while he’s at his wits’ end to know how to placate his own creditors. Mr Pitt happened to be a model husband and a great politician at the same time. That in itself provided his downfall. He didn’t become Lord Chatham for his own sake … but that of Lady Chatham. And that, one might say, was the end of his career. So you see, Mr Sheridan, this is the greatest gamble and I know that your fingers are itching to have a throw of the dice.’

Sheridan was silent, turning over the possibilities in his mind. It seemed a glittering prospect because this was not merely going into Parliament – it was going in arm in arm with Mr Fox.

Mr Fox continued: ‘As I was saying, the King has a certain power and the King is my enemy, and that of the Whigs. But a new star is rising and to this star shall we hitch our wagon. The Prince of Wales will be eighteen in August. He will be to us what the King is to the Tories.’

‘The Prince! A young man bent on pleasure!’

‘Don’t underestimate him. Bent on pleasure certainly. Young, lusty and so far kept under the stern eye of their Majesties. “Eat this. Don’t eat that.” “Get up at this hour. Go to bed at that.” Now what effect is this going to have on a young fellow whose high spirits are higher than average? There is one answer: Rebellion. Believe me, Mr Sheridan, the Prince has a very good reason to support the Whigs. His father is a Tory. That is the only reason he needs at this stage. Later he will find others. Don’t make old George’s mistake of thinking that because young George frolics with the ladies, selects his shoe buckles with care, has a passion for gold frogged coats and exquisitely cut breeches, that he’s a fool. He has been educated and significantly has made no effort to elude that education. He has the power to make his father feel a dunce in his presence. He is a boy … not yet eighteen … but time does not stand still. In three years time he will be the most powerful man in the country and … our friend.’

‘Our friend, Mr Fox?’

‘Yours and mine.’

‘But I have not yet made up my mind to go into politics.’

‘You will.’

Mr Fox drained his glass and rose.