The Regent's Daughter

A letter to the Morning Chronicle

THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE stood before her mirror to admire her feathers.

‘This,’ she told the admiring Louisa, ‘is an outward sign of age. The first time I have ever worn them – and how do they become me?’

‘Admirably,’ declared Louisa wholeheartedly.

‘My dear Louisa, I do believe you mean that. You do think I look beautiful, don’t you? But it’s only because you love me. You look at me through the eyes of love, dear Louisa, and that is a very pleasant way to be looked at. How I wish my father could be made to look at me in the same doting way. He looks with the eyes of criticism. Sometimes I think he wants to find something wrong. Yet perhaps he is changing. Is he not giving this ball for me? In my honour! Think of that! And at Carlton House. All that splendour and me … in feathers!’

She laughed loudly and Louisa joined with her. Charlotte was sober suddenly. ‘I must go to show myself to dear Gagy. She’ll be hurt if I don’t.’

Louisa turned away sharply. She did not want the Princess to be depressed on such an occasion, as she would certainly be when she saw the change in Mrs Gagarin even in the last few days.

Miss Knight went with Charlotte to the carriage. She was more often accompanied by Miss Knight than the Duchess whom she showed she resented. Anyone who bore the hated title of governess would be resented but the Duchess lacked the personality to win Charlotte’s respect. She thought her nouveau riche, for her marriage to the Duke of Leeds had, Charlotte had commented to Louisa, been a high step up for a lawyer’s daughter. ‘And what airs the woman gives herself – in her meek way of course. She’s anxious that everyone should know she’s a duchess.’

Moreover Mercer disliked her – mainly because she was a Tory and Mercer feared she might try to influence Charlotte’s political views.

‘No danger of that,’ Charlotte had declared hotly. ‘I’d be more Whiggish than ever just because she is a Tory.’ Which, Mercer could not refrain from pointing out, was scarcely a logical reason for forming a political opinion.

So the Duchess was a trial to be endured – though not one to give Charlotte any real qualms. In addition there was her daughter Catherine Osborne – a sly child whom Charlotte despised not only for her somewhat devious nature but because it had been suggested that the girl might be a companion for her. And she was fifteen years old! How could they insult a seventeen-year-old heiress to the throne by offering her a fifteen-year-old nonentity as a playmate! A playmate indeed – when her fancy was for a brilliant woman older than herself like the adored Mercer, and yes – she would admit it – Cornelia Knight, for she was growing more and more fond of Cornelia and she felt that one compensation which had come out of the recent shuffling of her household was the acquisition of Cornelia.

‘Dear Notte’ as she called her – an affectionate form of Knight – was a treasure. She had been to interesting places and was persona grata with fascinating people and she never hesitated, when prompted, to talk of her exciting past. The Prince liked her. He called her playfully ‘The Chevalier’. Because she was sans reproche? wondered Charlotte. Or because she went into battle for what she thought was right?

In any case, Charlotte was glad to have her, and when she was unable to be with Mercer, Notte made a good substitute.

Now riding in the carriage to Carlton House she was delighted to have Miss Knight beside her. It put the Regent in a good mood to see his daughter in such capable hands and Charlotte herself was pleased because dear old Notte was becoming so fond of her. She was always anxious that Charlotte should enjoy life as much as possible.

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Charlotte. ‘I do hope Papa will like my feathers.’

‘It is more important that he should like you,’ Cornelia reminded her, and it might have been Mercer speaking, Charlotte noted delightedly.

‘But the Prince Regent cares so much for the right costume that his affections could be swayed by such considerations, don’t you think?’

Miss Knight was not going to be drawn into that.

‘I’m glad you came and not Leeds,’ went on Charlotte. ‘How I wish I could be rid of her. As for her odious daughter – I hate the child. I’m sure she listens at doors. She is always prowling around at night. Little beast! One of these days I shall let my lady Catherine know what I think of her.’

‘Do remember when you sit down not to expose your undergarments.’

Charlotte laughed. ‘My drawers – or rather the showing of them – always caused poor Cliffy such concern. Don’t you start worrying about them, dear Notte.’

‘People watch. They talk of these things.’

‘I’m continually spied on. If it is not the odious Catherine creeping round corners, it’s people.’

‘The penalty of royalty.’

‘I’ve been discovering the penalties all my life. Soon I hope to enjoy the privileges. Oh dear, I wonder if Devonshire will be there tonight.’

‘Your fondness for the Duke of Devonshire has been noticed.’

‘Well, he is rather charming. Not handsome, I grant you, but very pleasant to be with.’

‘Your Highness should be careful.’

‘People notice,’ mimicked Charlotte. ‘Let them. I am after all the heiress to the throne. Why shouldn’t I be with people I like!’

‘Your father would not wish you to be too friendly with the Duke.’

‘Why not? He was once friendly with his mother. Not now, of course. My father is almost a Tory now. What a turncoat!’

The manner in which Miss Knight set her lips conveyed that this was a subject she did not wish to discuss, and when she looked like that nothing could shift her. Charlotte smiled. Cornelia became more and more her dear Notte every day and grew less and less like her father’s Chevalier. Cornelia was going to be her devoted friend, not his. It was strange how everything seemed to turn itself into a battle between them.

Here they were at Carlton House. The Prince was waiting to greet her and the people who had gathered to see the arrival of the ton had loud cheers for the Princess Charlotte in her feathers.

Back at Warwick House Charlotte decided it had been a disappointing evening in spite of the feathers. The Duke of Devonshire had not been present. He had been unwell, she had heard. Was this the truth or had he been informed that his presence would not be welcome? One could never be sure and if people were beginning to notice that she liked him and it reached her father’s ears it was very possible that the Duke had received a hint to keep away. What a bore to be royal! All the fun one had must be enjoyed surreptitiously.

So the ball had been dull in spite of the presence of a number of French exiles and her father’s being particularly gracious to her. ‘Now that you are seventeen,’ he had said, ‘there must be more such balls.’ She hoped her demeanour and deportment had pleased him. It had appeared to – but one never knew. He had probably been warned by his ministers that it would be wise to show that his relationship with his daughter was amicable.

She yawned as Louisa removed the feathers.

‘Tired,’ soothed Louisa, ‘after all that dancing?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘It’s tiring if you don’t dance with those with whom you want to dance.’

‘Any special one?’

Charlotte laughed. ‘I confess to an interest in Devonshire. He’s not good-looking but I like him all the same. And he likes me, too. But perhaps he doesn’t. Perhaps it’s just because he feels he must.’

‘Of course he likes you. He couldn’t help it.’

‘Louisa, I believe that if I were a foundling who had been left at your door – the child of a fish porter and a flower girl – you would still love me.’

‘Of course I would.’

‘You are a comforting creature,’ declared Charlotte and on that note of satisfaction retired to bed.

She was dozing when she heard the sound of light creeping footsteps. Someone was coming along the corridor. Charlotte snatched up a wrap and leaped out of bed. Now that she was fully awake she guessed who the intruder was because she had found Catherine Osborne wandering about at night before. I thought I heard Your Highness call,’ she would say if caught. ‘I thought Your Highness wanted something.’ Sly creature! What did she expect to find? What did she hope to find?

There was a certain amount of gossip about Hesse and Fitzclarence and now Devonshire … Could she really think …?

Charlotte flushed scarlet at the thought.

The door was slowly pushed open and Catherine Osborne looked in.

‘Your Highness!’ she was startled and Charlotte smiled grimly.

‘What’s wrong, Lady Catherine? You look as if you expected to find someone different from myself in my bedroom.’

‘I … thought Your Highness called.’

‘Indeed I did not.’

‘It must have been someone … or perhaps I dreamed it.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Charlotte tersely. Lady Catherine’s eyes wandered about the room. Did she expect to see Devonshire lurking in a cupboard, Fitzclarence crouching behind the curtains or Captain Hesse under the bed? How the sly creature would have enjoyed reporting something like that to her Mamma.

‘Well, Lady Catherine, having satisfied yourself that I did not summon you and your hearing is at fault or you are the victim of a nightmare, you may escort me to the water closet.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’

The creature was looking complacent. She thought she had cleverly extricated herself from a delicate situation.

Charlotte took her arm and led her along the corridor which was cold and draughty, but not as cold as the water closet. Having reached this, Charlotte gave Lady Catherine a little push and sending her in shut the door on her. Lady Catherine gasped as she heard Charlotte turn the lock from outside.

Charlotte went back to her room. And that, she thought, will teach my lady Catherine not to prowl at night.

After half an hour she would go and release her. She did not want the silly girl to die of cold – only to teach her that the Princess Charlotte would not tolerate spies in her own household.

The Princess of Wales had decided, with the backing of Brougham and Whitbread, that this was the time for action. Charlotte was at variance with her father over this matter of her household; the spate of comment in the newspapers was growing; and the Prince was more unpopular than ever. As for herself she was treated shamefully both by her husband and the Queen who never invited her to her Drawing Rooms or any State occasion and who had taken the care of her daughter out of her hands.

Brougham had drafted a letter of complaint which she was to send to the Prince of Wales at the appropriate moment: and that moment had come.

She read the letter through. ‘This will make him take notice,’ she murmured, and smiled to herself. She was ready to go to any lengths to get her darling Charlotte back. It was wicked to keep a mother from her daughter. Occasional visits were not good enough; she wanted to have Charlotte constantly under her roof; she wanted them to be seen together. And why not? It was what the people expected. She had heard that when Charlotte drove out in her carriage the cry of ‘Don’t forget your mother! Cherish and love your mother!’ had been shouted more than once.

That fat coxcomb she had married must be grinding his teeth in rage. They didn’t say ‘Cherish your father’, did they? Oh, it was easy to see whose side the people were on, and princes – be they prince regents and all but kings – had to consider the people.

What a letter! Laboriously she copied Brougham’s close writing.

I should continue, in silence and retirement, to lead the life which has been prescribed for me and console myself for that loss of society and those domestic comforts to which I have so long been a stranger …

She chuckled, thinking of life at Blackheath, Connaught House and the apartments in Kensington where she received her friends. Far more interesting than Carlton House and the Pavilion! Amusing people came to her parties … unshockable, witty, unconventional. But that was not the point. In this letter she was a woman complaining of her miserable and unnatural state and stressing her willingness to accept it but for one consideration: her daughter.

But, sir, there are considerations of a higher nature than any in regard to my own happiness which render this address a duty to myself and my daughter. May I venture to say – a duty also to my husband and the people committed to his care. There is a point beyond which a guiltless woman cannot with safety carry her forbearance …

She laughed. Brougham could certainly write. She imagined the Prince reading this missive. The anger, the irritation, the fury … but he would applaud the style and of course know it was not hers which was all to the good. He would know clever people were supporting her.

She went on writing. He would have to notice this. If not, she would publish it. That would be a good idea. Then there would be trouble. Wait until the people read this letter which they would think she had composed herself and which showed her so clearly as the wronged wife and the heartbroken mother.

… the separation which every succeeding month is made wider, of the mother and daughter, is equally injurious to my character and her education. I say nothing of the deep wounds which so cruel an arrangement inflicts upon my feelings, though I would fain hope that few persons will be found of a disposition to think lightly of these. To see myself cut off from one of the few domestic enjoyments left me – certainly the only one upon which I set any value, the society of my child – involves me in such misery as I well know Your Highness could never inflict on me if you were aware of its bitterness. Our intercourse has been gradually diminishing. A single interview weekly seemed sufficiently hard allowance for a mother’s affection … that, however, was reduced to our meeting once a fortnight; and I now learn that even this most rigorous interdiction is to be still more rigidly enforced …

She was enjoying this. Brougham was making her aware of emotions she had never understood. Of course, she told herself, I wanted my daughter with me. What a dear little baby she was and all my own then … for a time … a little time. Then they took her from me. I wasn’t good enough to bring up a future Queen of England even though she might be my own child.

She went on writing in the same strain, stressing her wrongs and the theme of that letter was: Consider a mother’s feelings and do not separate her from her child.

When she had finished it she sealed it and despatched it to Lords Eldon and Liverpool with the request that they should lay it before the Prince of Wales.

She laughed at the thought of his receiving it. He would pick it up as though it were infected with the smallpox, that expression of disgust on his face because he would be thinking of her.

In her bedroom she took a small figure from a drawer. She set it up against a looking-glass and laughed at it. The likeness was good – the portly figure, the well-shaped calves, the pert nose and the pouting lips. It was the Regent to the life – and exquisitely dressed of course with a necktie worn high up to his chin; the coat was of the finest velvet; even the breeches were of buckskin.

Caroline picked up a pin and thrust it into the figure where his heart would have been. The heads of several pins were visible in this spot.

‘At least,’ she said aloud, ‘it relieves the feelings. Take that, my fat prince. And that … and that …’

She laughed so much that Willie came in to see what was the matter.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you’re playing the pin game again, Mamma.’

She picked him up and gave him loud kisses all over his face to which he submitted resignedly. He was accustomed to these outbursts of affection.

She put him down at length and threw the figure face down into a drawer.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘we shall see what His Highness has to reply to that!’

When the Prince saw the sealed letter he looked at it in much the same manner as Caroline had imagined.

‘I have sworn that I will never receive any document from the Princess of Wales,’ he reminded Eldon and Liverpool.

‘We do not forget this, Sir,’ said Liverpool, ‘but we were in duty bound to inform Your Highness of its arrival. We believe it to be Your Highness’s wish that this … missive … should be returned whence it came … unopened.’

‘This is my wish,’ replied the Prince.

‘Then,’ said Liverpool, ‘so be it, and I will inform the Princess that any communication she wishes to make must be made through the Chancellor and myself.’

The Regent nodded. ‘Let that be done, but I wish to have nothing to do with the woman.’

The ministers nodded.

It was deplorable, Lord Eldon remarked to Lord Liverpool later, that statemen like themselves should have to occupy themselves with such matters.

The Princess Caroline laughed aloud when she heard.

‘So he won’t read my letters, eh? He can’t bear to talk to me. I’m not dainty enough. Come here, Willie … do you find me dainty … or dirty?’

Willie dutifully came and was seized in a suffocating hug.

‘You love your old Mamma, eh, Willie?’

Willie declared that he did.

‘I’ve had nothing but insults from that man since I came here. Prince Regent! Prancing Tailor’s Dummy more like! And my own blessed Charlotte snatched from her mother’s arms. How would you like that?’

Willie said that what he would like was some of the special sweetmeats which were kept in her apartments.

She hugged him afresh and said he should have his sweetmeats, and she would have her darling daughter.

Brougham called.

‘My dear, faithful Brougham!’ she cried distractedly. ‘What should I do without you? What do you think that dreadful man has done now? He refuses to read my letter … our letter … and he has sent it back by way of Liverpool and Eldon. He’ll communicate only through them if you please. His Highness is afraid I might contaminate him.’

Brougham listened cautiously.

‘We will send the letter back to the noble lords,’ he said, ‘with instructions that if the Prince will not open the letter, they must do so and read its contents to him.’

‘Well, my lord?’ demanded Caroline.

Lord Eldon, the arrogant creature who always seemed to look scornfully down his nose as though to say ‘My goodness, what outsider have we brought into the royal family!’ said coldly: ‘Your Highness’s communication has been read to His Highness the Prince Regent.’

‘At last! And what did his noble Highness say?’

Eldon smiled complacently. ‘Nothing whatever, Your Highness.’

When the insolent man had gone Caroline gave vent to her fury, stamping up and down the room, abusing the royal family, her cheeks under their rouge red with emotion, her wig awry so that her own straggling grey hairs showed under the wayward black curls.

Her fury did not last long and soon she was laughing. ‘They will be sorry,’ she told Willie.

She was soon able to gloat over her revenge when on the advice of her friends, led by Brougham, the letter was sent to the Morning Chronicle and on February 10th was published prominently on the front page.

The whole country was talking about the scandalous state of affairs which existed between the Regent and his wife. What effect was it having on their daughter? the readers of the Morning Chronicle asked each other. The ponr Princess was like a shuttlecock, batted back and forth between a pair of irresponsible players. But the letter appealed to public sentiment. It was not right, was the verdict, to keep a child from its mother.

The Regent was more unpopular than ever and was greeted with boos and catcalls in the streets. His carriage, standing outside the Hertfords’ was once again pelted with refuse and spattered with mud. His standing had never been so low.

Then Brougham brought up the matter in Parliament and the letter was freely discussed.

It was, declared the Regent to the Queen, one of the most humiliating occasions of his life. ‘I wish to God I had never seen that woman. I would give anything to undo this marriage.’

The Queen, her hands folded in her lap, could not resist a self-satisfied smile which reminded him that if they had listened to her that woman would not be here now. She had wanted her son to take her niece instead of his father’s. How different if he had married Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz instead of Caroline of Brunswick.

If she did not say it now she had said it a hundred times in the past, but who knew, wondered the Regent, what marriage with Louise would have been like? It could not have been worse, he supposed, for Caroline surely must be the most unsuitable wife in the world. He despised and detested her and his greatest desire was to be rid of her. The only benefit she had brought him was to give him his heir – Charlotte – and Charlotte with her waywardness was a mixed blessing. His poor mad father had had a quiverful – too full – so that his progeny were a great expense to the nation; and he, the First Gentleman of Europe, had succeeded in producing only one – and that a girl.

This brought him back to the great problem of his life – if only he could rid himself of Caroline. If only he could re-marry while he was still young enough to get a male heir! A new wife … a male heir … and neither Caroline nor Charlotte would be of importance in his life.

The Queen was saying: ‘It is disgraceful to publish such a letter. It means of course that she has supporters, otherwise she would not dare and if they are going to discuss the matter fully in Parliament … oh dear.’ She reached for her snuffbox, her greatest solace in trouble.

The Regent suddenly made up his mind. ‘I shall insist on another examination of those documents concerned in the Delicate Investigation. I am sure there is something there which will give me the information I need. If I can only find proof that William Austin is her son I’d have my evidence.’

‘And meanwhile,’ put in the Queen, ‘she will be poisoning Charlotte’s mind against us all. Charlotte has to be considered now. Next year she will be eighteen and that will be her coming of age. I do believe that prompt action should be taken.’

‘Charlotte shall not see her mother while the investigation is in progress. I will go to her myself and tell her that they are not to meet for a while.’

‘Charlotte,’ said the Queen decisively, ‘needs a very firm hand.’