The Regent's Daughter

The old girls and the Begum

‘NOBODY EVER HAD a stranger set of relations than I,’ Charlotte told Louisa Lewis and Mrs Gagarin. ‘Really, they do the oddest things. Do you think they are all a little mad? Grandpapa is, I know. Pray don’t look so shocked, dear Louisa, because you know it to be so. Did he not have to live in retirement not so long ago? My father was then hoping for the Regency but the old Begum put a stop to that. Oh, you poor dears, I am in a mood to shock you today.’

The two women exchanged glances which Charlotte intercepted. ‘Pray don’t make secret signs,’ she cried imperiously. ‘I know you talk about them when I’m not there. Don’t deny it. I don’t blame you. Everybody talks and why should they not? Conversation is one of the most amusing pastimes I know. And who could help talking about such a family as ours? There is my father with his affairs; there is Uncle Augustus who once made such a fuss about marrying his Goosey and now has left her. There is Uncle William who lives with that actress Dorothy Jordan as though she is his wife and there are all those little Fitzclarences to prove it. George Fitz is rather fond of Minney Seymour. I do declare everyone is fond of Minney Seymour. She is such a good little girl … not like wicked Princess Charlotte.’

‘My dear Princess, you should not say such things. There are many who are fond of you.’

She turned to them and gave them each one of her rough embraces.

‘You two, of course,’ she said. ‘But you are rather f … foolish to think so highly of me. I’m not a very pleasant character sometimes, I fear. Although I am not bad at others. I have my moments. Oh dear, and I have to attend my grandmother’s Drawing Room. I think I shall go for a walk instead and then when it is time I shall not be found and Grandmamma will say what an ill-mannered creature I am – just like my mother, and she will think up some new and exquisite torture for me.’

‘You know Her Majesty would never dream of torturing you.’

‘But sometimes I think she would like to. She watches me with that big mouth of hers shut so tightly …’ Charlotte had transformed herself into the Queen; she seemed to grow small and malevolent.

‘Oh, do give over, dear Princess Charlotte, do,’ said Mrs Gagarin.

‘I shall go for a walk first and then I shall come back and be prepared in good time to present myself to the Begum and the Old Girls.’

She grinned with delight to see the shocked horror these names always aroused when she used them. Perhaps that was why she did. It was a sort of revenge.

She snatched up her cloak and ran out. She heard Louisa calling her but she paid no heed. She was not supposed to walk out unaccompanied. What nonsense! Anyone would think she was as fragile as Minney Seymour. ‘And I’m not …’ she said. ‘Nor as precious.’

She was saddened for a while. He was kinder now, so Mrs Fitzherbert had spoken to him. She sensed that he was trying to make an effort, but there was always a barrier between them. It was her mother, of course. And what was happening about her mother? What was the Delicate Investigation going to reveal?

She knew now more than they thought. They were trying to prove her mother immoral; they were trying to show that that frightful infant Willie Austin was her mother’s own baby and that her mother had performed an act of treason, for if Willie were indeed her mother’s child and her mother insisted that the Prince was his father …

Impossible, for then she, Princess Charlotte, would not long be an heiress to the throne. At least she would have to take a step backwards.

Willie Austin – that horrid, vulgar little brat! She had always hated him – in common with everyone else except her mother. Perhaps she had been a little jealous to see her mother petting him, kissing him, making the great fuss of him she always did.

Indeed she had a very strange family.

The castle loomed before her. Why did she hate living at Windsor when it was such a wonderful place? So much had happened here in the past – the home of her ancestors.

When I am queen, she thought, there shall be feasting here. It will be quite different then. I shall give balls and there will be fun and laughter. It will not be the grim old place Grandpapa and the Begum have made it.

The terraces had been built by Queen Elizabeth and the gallery was called Queen Elizabeth’s Gallery. My favourite part of the castle, thought Charlotte. I suppose because she made it.

It was not surprising that she thought so often of Elizabeth. There was so much here to remind her and at Hampton, Greenwich and Richmond. How thrilling to have been so often in fear of her life when she was young – and what triumph for her when at last she was proclaimed Queen of England. And those men who danced attendance on her and whom she would not accept as her lovers!

Charlotte laughed aloud. I will be like her, I think, if I am ever queen.

If! Why should she say that? She would be queen one day for her father and mother would never have a son – and no one could ever believe that that horrible child her mother doted on at Montague House could possibly have been sired by the Prince of Wales. So why should she say If? Because she had made a will recently? Because there was something eerie about the castle and the great forest? Because strange things happened to members of her family?

‘I shall be queen,’ she said aloud. And then looked about her almost defiantly. It was rather a wicked thing to have said because not only Grandpapa but her father would have to die first.

No one had heard. There was no one near. She looked towards the forest and thought of Herne the Hunter. He would not be abroad by day – if he ever was. She did not believe in such legends … not by day at any rate.

There was no Herne the Hunter; no one had ever seen him. But she did know that people were afraid to be alone in the forest by night lest they should come face to face with the ghost of Herne with the stag horns on his head. It was death to see him. She shivered. What dreadful things had Herne the Hunter done which had made him hang himself on an oak tree and haunt the forest for evermore?

There was so much romance at Windsor and yet living here was so dull … made so since she was not allowed to see her mother, because she was under the constant supervision of the Queen.

And now if she did not go in and allow them to prepare her for the Drawing Room she would be late and in disgrace – and not only herself but her attendants.

She grimaced. Who would be a princess? And yet … how angry she had been at the thought of that horrid little Willie Austin robbing her of her inheritance!

No, she would be a queen … as shrewd and clever … and perhaps as wicked as Elizabeth.

I wished they’d named me after her instead of after the old Begum, she thought.

The King was seated at his table turning over some State papers. He could not keep his mind on them; he could not keep his mind on anything. And it is getting worse, he admitted. What’s happening to me, eh, what? Perhaps I ought to abdicate. Give it over to George, eh?

He frowned; his face was scarlet and that made his white brows look whiter; they jutted out ferociously above his protuberant eyes. He was not in the least fierce; he was the mildest of men; he only wanted to live in peace – but events would not let him; and there was his family to plague him.

His sight was failing him; he could not read the papers without holding them closer to his eyes and then his mind would not concentrate on what was written there.

A poor fellow, he thought. And there’s no respect for me … not with my ministers, my people nor my family.

Yet there were some members of his family … his daughters for instance. Amelia most of all. Blessed Amelia, the delight of his life, who gave him so much pleasure and so much anxiety. Yet as long as he had Amelia he could find life worth living. The others too he was fond of … Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary and Sophia. Charlotte, his eldest, was living happily with her husband, which was more than he had hoped for, in Wurtemberg with her Prince, once the husband of Caroline’s sister Charlotte who had died mysteriously … at least they hoped she was dead, poor girl, for if she were not then that other Charlotte, Princess Royal of England and his eldest daughter, was not married at all. But the first Charlotte had disappeared mysteriously in Russia. She must have been rather like Caroline … the sort of eccentric young woman to whom dramatic things happen.

Caroline was another source of anxiety. All this scandal. Those men she entertained at Montague House and behaved so wantonly with by all accounts. The terrible scandals that happened in this family! His sons seemed to have no moral standards at all. And he had always been such a virtuous man.

And what was coming out of this Investigation he could not imagine. He knew what his son, the Prince of Wales, wanted. He wanted the case proved against his wife. He wanted a divorce.

‘Shocking, eh, what?’ said the King aloud.

And there was the child, Young Charlotte – all ears. She was a sharp one. His mouth curved into a smile. Little minx, that was Charlotte. But he was glad to have her here under his care. She was his granddaughter. None of them must forget that, and although he was ill and his sight was failing – and his reason too, some said – he was still the King.

The Queen had come into the room. She came unannounced, as she would never have done before his illness. He had been the master then; but now, he was too old, too feeble.

‘Your Majesty, I have come to accompany you to the Drawing Room.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, but he continued to sit at the table.

She was looking at him anxiously. She was always watching for the signs. When he began to speak rapidly, when he was incoherent, when the veins stood out at his temples and his face was puce colour she really began to be frightened. It was not that she had a great deal of affection for him. She had never loved him. That had not been possible. When she had come to England he had been kind to her and had successfully hidden his disappointment to find a plain and gauche young German girl was to be his wife when he had dreamed of lovely Sarah Lennox with whom he was in love; he had at least not blamed her, but had meekly accepted his fate while at the same time he made it clear that she should have no power outside her own household; she had come to England to bear children and that was what she had done for twenty years – fifteen children and that didn’t leave much time in between pregnancies.

But when he had lost his reason and she had made her alliance with Mr Pitt against the Prince of Wales and Mr Fox, Queen Charlotte had become quite a power at Court; and when the King had recovered – though not fully – he had been too weak, too ill to oust her from the position she had made for herself.

‘Is there any news?’ he asked.

‘You mean of the Investigation. There is nothing fresh.’

The King shook his head. ‘I thought she was a pleasant woman. Not without good looks … ready to be a good wife …’

The Queen’s mouth shut like a trap; it was thin and wide and even had she possessed perfect features apart from it – which she certainly did not – it would have prevented any claim to beauty.

‘I knew it was wrong, right from the beginning. And so did George.’

The King shook his head and tears came into his eyes. There were almost always tears in his eyes. The Queen was not certain whether they were due to ophthalmic weakness or emotion.

‘I thought he was going to refuse …’ he began.

‘Better if he had,’ retorted the Queen. She felt a grim satisfaction because the marriage had gone wrong. She had had a niece, beautiful, accomplished Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who had needed a husband at the time – and the Prince, to plague her, had chosen his father’s niece, Caroline of Brunswick, rather than his mother’s.

‘Perhaps it will come right between them,’ said the King.

The Queen gave a snort of laughter. ‘After this Investigation that is hardly likely. She’s a coarse and vulgar creature and George is the most fastidious prince in Europe.’

‘Too much time spent on prancing about in fancy dress. This fellow Brummell …’

‘Oh, you know what George is. He’s always been the same.’ Her expression was one of mingling pride and anger. She had loved her firstborn as she loved nothing else on earth – or ever would. She had craved his affection. And when he had scorned her she had deliberately sought to soothe her feelings by turning that love into a fierce hatred. They would be surprised, she often thought, all these people who surrounded her and regarded her as cold Queen Charlotte, incapable of emotion. There could never have been fiercer emotion than that she felt towards her eldest son. When he had been born she had believed that to be the happiest moment of her life; she had not been able to bear him out of her sight; she had a wax image made of him which she kept on her dressing table. Her beautiful George, her clever precocious son who had charmed everyone with his brilliance and arrogant manners and his fastidious ways as a boy. And when he had flouted her, shown so clearly that there was no place for his dowdy old mother in his life, love had turned to hate – but the love was still there smouldering. This doddering old man meant nothing to her compared with her brilliant magnificent son.

And the idea of marrying him to that dreadful creature! Thank God, she had had no hand in that and had in fact done all in her power to prevent it. Now perhaps they were sorry they had not taken her advice … and none more so than George himself.

‘The child’s mother swears that this … Willie … is hers. She gives details of the hospital where he was born. That makes a clear case for Caroline. They can’t accuse her of being his mother. How I wish … What’s the use? These scandals. They’re no good for the family, eh, what?’

‘The sooner she is sent back to Brunswick the better.’

‘We can’t do that.’

‘Well, if she is not found to be the mother of this boy there are many other things she can be accused of. It’s quite shocking. The Princess of Wales living apart from her husband and entertaining men!’

‘It was he who refused to live with her, you know. I spoke to them both. “Never,” he said. “I’d rather die.” And as for her, she said if he didn’t want her he could stay away. But I could see she would have had him back if he would go.’

‘Nothing can be done until the Investigation is completed. But I do think that woman should be kept away from Charlotte.’

‘The little minx,’ said the King fondly.

‘Indeed so and in need of correction which she shall have. There is an improvement since she has been here at Windsor.’

‘Good fellow, Fisher. Nott too … She’s bright, eh, what?’

‘Far from brilliant but by no means foolish. I do not like the stammer though; and she is too impulsive and most ungraceful. I have seen her father shudder when he looks at her.’

The King’s face grew a shade more puce. ‘His conduct has not always been so … so good … that he can afford to be critical of others, eh, what?’

The Queen said: ‘I was speaking of deportment. Charlotte is gauche and clumsy. It must be rectified.’

‘She dances prettily.’

Fond and foolish where the young were concerned, thought the Queen.

She said: ‘She must spend more time with her aunts.’

Her aunts. His daughters. His darling love Amelia – kind and gentle, always affectionate to her own father, and yet he could not think of her without alarm, because of all the family she was the invalid.

‘Amelia’s cough …’

‘Is better,’ said the Queen.

They always told him it was better. But was it?

‘And that pain in her knee?’

‘It is nothing. The doctors say it will improve.’

He couldn’t really believe them. They had to soothe the poor mad old king.

‘It is time we went,’ said the Queen. ‘We shall be late for the Drawing Room.’

Ugh! thought Charlotte. What a family!

Lady de Clifford was close to her, praying she would do nothing to bring disgrace on herself and her governess. There seated on her chair was the Queen and beside her the King. No one need be frightened of him. He was simply poor old Grandpapa who was always kind and liked to be told one loved him. The old Begum was a different matter.

Lady de Clifford had made her practise her curtsey at least twenty times.

‘But Cliffy, I know how to curtsey.’

‘This is the Queen, my dear Princess.’

Indeed it was the Queen. How ugly she was! When she had been a little girl Charlotte had said: ‘The two things I hate most are apple pie and my grandmother.’ Someone had repeated that. They thought it funny. And on another occasion when they gave her the most horrid boiled mutton she had compared the Queen with that. ‘There are two things I hate most in the world, boiled mutton and my grandmother.’ The dish had changed but the grandmother remained. That was significant.

She must advance across the room which seemed enormous. Her hair hung in long ringlets and she was wearing a pink silk dress. There were a few pearl decorations on it. She felt stupid in it and would have been much happier in a riding habit. But of course one did not attend the Queen’s Drawing Room in a riding habit.

She almost tripped and righted herself in time. She was aware of the sudden silence. All the Old Girls ranged round Grand-mamma’s chair were watching her. Mary would be sorry. Mary was the prettiest of the aunts and she was always charming to Charlotte, but she had begun to wonder whether Mary repeated to the Queen some of the things she said.

She was close to the Queen; she made her curtsey. Yes, it was a clumsy one and the Queen had snake’s eyes; you almost expected a long darting poison-tipped fang to come out of that ugly mouth.

The thought so amused Charlotte that she began to smile unconsciously.

She turned to the King. She should of course have greeted him first. He would not notice though and perhaps the Queen would be pleased even though it was a breach of etiquette. He put out his hand and she grasped it.

‘Dear Grandpapa,’ she said with great affection because he was not like the Queen.

Oh dear, he’s going to cry, she thought. He looked awful when he cried; his great eyes looked as though they were going to pop out of his head. She did not curtsey – the one she had done would do for them both. That would show that it had really been meant for the King. She went and stood close to him and kissed his cheek. It was wrong of course but he did not care. He put an arm about her and said: ‘Well, and how’s my granddaughter, eh, what? Getting on with all those lessons, eh? Leading Fisher a dance? And Nott, eh, what?’

‘As well as can be expected, Grandpapa.’

Amelia laughed and when Amelia laughed the King was very happy. In fact, thought Charlotte, they wouldn’t be such a bad old family if it were not for the Begum.

The Queen said: ‘Stay by me, Charlotte. I have some questions to ask you.’

‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ she said demurely.

The questions were about her household, about her lessons. How was she getting on with her religious instruction? The Queen had not always been pleased by good Dr Fisher’s reports.

‘But he is so good, Madam. We cannot all be as good as he is.’

‘It should be our earnest endeavour to try.’

‘Oh yes, Your Majesty.’

‘I am asking Dr Nott to let me see some of your work.’

Charlotte smiled, she hoped blandly, to disguise the apprehension in her heart. Would this give rise to longer hours of study? Oh, why could she not go to live at Montague House and become a part of that strange but merry household? Her mother would never have expected her to curtsey at this and that and address her by her title every now and then. Why could not her grandmother be a grandmother as well as a queen?

‘He tells me that you do not seem to be able to master the rules of grammar. Why is that?’

Charlotte thought for a second. ‘It’s because the rules of grammar master me, I expect.’

‘You are too frivolous, Charlotte. Try to be more serious.’

Charlotte lowered her eyes. ‘I fear it is in my nature, Madam.’

‘That is no excuse. It must be suppressed. I hear you are fond of writing letters to everyone you can think of … full of idle observations, and that you write pages of irrelevant nonsense when you should be more profitably engaged.’

‘George was the same, so I’ve heard,’ said gentle Amelia. ‘He loved to write. It is a gift in a way.’

‘What’s that, eh?’ demanded the King, eager to hear what his darling had said.

Amelia went to her father and put her hand on his arm.

‘I was saying, Papa, that Charlotte is like her father. She loves to write. I always remember hearing that.’

Tears again, thought Charlotte. What a watery old Grand-papa! But Amelia did look very affecting leaning against him – she was so slight and slender, like a fairy; she really did look as though she were made of some light and airy substance which a puff of wind would carry off. Perhaps Grandpapa thought this and that was why he was always so frightened of losing her.

‘It is a most unsatisfactory habit and quite useless,’ said the Queen.

Oh dear! sighed Charlotte to herself. How I wish that I were far away. At Montague House? For a while, But there was no security at Montague House. Mamma was affectionate inas-much as she kept embracing and kissing and calling one her love and angel. But there were times when she seemed to forget and perhaps she was more devoted to Willie Austin than her own daughter.

No, she would have liked to be in Tilney Street with calm and dignified Mrs Fitzherbert, whose affection would never be over-demonstrative but steady, so that one would know it was always there.

Tilney Street – or the house on the Steyne – and the Prince of Wales arriving and taking his place as though it were his home.

‘And where is my little Charlotte?’ he would say; and she would run out and climb on his knee and call him Prinney.

But this was what Minney Seymour did. Minney who was not his daughter at all.

It was unfair. She should have been there. How different that would have been.

‘Charlotte, you are not attending to what I am saying,’ said the Queen.

It was less of an ordeal to be with the aunts. They tried to pamper her a little; after all she was their only legitimate niece and they all adored her father, although they were afraid to say so openly.

So she was Darling Charlotte to them; but they kept a close watch on everything she did and said, and she did suspect that to curry favour with the Queen they reported these to her.

They are a nest of spies! thought Charlotte dramatically. Aunt Augusta was the oldest of the Old Girls although she had an elder sister who was now married and living abroad. That was Charlotte, the Princess Royal, who used to write long letters to Eggy – Lady Elgin – who had been Charlotte’s governess before Lady de Clifford’s time. Eggy used to read the letters to Charlotte sometimes to show what a good aunt she had and to teach her to count her blessings, of which Good Aunt Charlotte was supposed to be one. She used to send presents from abroad which were always unusual and welcome. There were dolls dressed like German peasants and once a miniature set of teacups and saucers. These presents however were usually accompanied by some homily. ‘Pray tell Charlotte that I am sending her a fan and when I go to Stuttgart I shall not fail to bespeak some silver toys if she continues to be a good girl.’

Dear old Eggy always read these letters in a voice of deep solemnity, impressing on Charlotte the need to improve herself. Eggy had been far more of a martinet than Lady de Clifford because Charlotte had quickly discovered that the latter was a little afraid of her – afraid perhaps of losing her position, of displeasing the Prince of Wales, of proving to them all that she was quite incapable of controlling the Princess Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte on the Continent must have received long letters about her progress not only from Eggy but from the Old Girls. Fragments of the letters came back to her now: ‘As she has once found that she is clever, nothing but being with older children will ever get the better of this unfortunate vanity, which is a little in her blood as you know full well. I approve very much of your trying to get the better of her covetousness.’

Such a little monster I must have been! mused Charlotte.

And her aunt had suggested that when she went to the country after being inoculated – for she could not be allowed to go near the cottage people until she had been – she might be taken among the very poor so that pity might be aroused in her. She should be encouraged to give freely of her pocket money to the poor.

And Eggy had seen that she had. Charlotte had found one of those account books only recently with the amounts she had given set down in her childish handwriting. It was all ‘To a poor blind man 2s;’ ‘To a lame woman 1s’ and so on – columns and columns of it.

Perhaps, Charlotte reflected, it was better that Aunt Charlotte was in Germany for she seemed to be of a critical nature: ‘As for Charlotte’s being much on one side you could easily make her get the better of it by making her wear a weight in her pocket on the opposite side.’ (She remembered those weights.) ‘As for her stutter, she must try and overcome that. She must calm herself before she speaks.’ ‘We must watch these little shadows on her character. If she behaves ill to others she should be punished severely. For lies or violent passions I believe the rod is necessary.’ ‘I always feared the child’s cleverness would lead her to be cunning to gain her points.’ ‘I hear that she is good at music and repeats French well and prettily. Though all this sounds very well I was a little hurt that she displayed these accomplishments without showing any timidity. Were she my daughter I should prefer a little modesty.’

Charlotte could see that there would have been no pleasing that aunt who bore the same name as herself and rejoiced in the distance which separated them.

That left Augusta, Elizabeth, Mary, Sophia and Amelia.

She studied them now as they bent over their embroidery; and she, of course, was supposed to be doing the same. Why did her threads always seem to get knotted? Why did she suddenly find that one stitch – some way back – was too big and in the wrong place? I was not meant to be a seamstress, she thought. Did Queen Elizabeth have to sit over her needlework, stitching away like some little needlewoman? How foolish it all was. She did not want to learn to sew but to be a queen.

Aunt Augusta was sketching. She was the artistic one of the family; she could also compose music which was very clever indeed. Grandpapa sometimes listened to it and sat nodding his head and afterwards he would say: ‘That was very good, Augusta my dear,’ as though she were of Charlotte’s age and had just mastered some difficult piece on the harpsichord. Then there was Aunt Elizabeth who was always affectionate and liked to be called Aunt Libby which was what Charlotte had called her as a child; she thought it showed what great friends they were, but Charlotte did not trust her. Aunt Elizabeth was always looking for drama. She would have liked to play a big part in State affairs and be involved in some terrific plot, Charlotte was sure. Mary was still pretty although she was getting old – she must be nearly thirty now. Poor Mary, who had been the best looking of all the princesses and was hoping to marry her cousin the Duke of Gloucester one day. He was very fond of her and was always at her side, and when he was there she glowed very prettily and looked nearer twenty than thirty; but then he would go away and she would be upset and grumble about how they were kept sheltered from life and then her face would pucker and she would look discontented and quite old. Poor Mary! Poor all of them! They were not very happy, and who could wonder at it, for Grandpapa, much as he loved them, could not bear to hear that any man wanted to many them and he went on trying to make himself believe that they were really very young girls who had to be protected from the world. Theirs was not exactly an enviable lot considering this and the fact that they were in constant attendance on the old Begum whose temper was very sharp, particularly in the winter when she was troubled with rheumatic pains.

Then there was Sophia – a bit of a mystery, Sophia; there were secrets in Sophia’s eyes, and Charlotte had seen her whispering with General Garth in corners. General Garth was often in attendance because he was one of Grandpapa’s favourite equerries; but, Charlotte ruminated, he seemed to like Sophia even better than the King.

And then Amelia – dear fragile Amelia, whose health gave her family so much anxiety; and who was sweet and kind to everybody, particularly poor Grandpapa, and who did not worry as the others did about not being allowed to marry because she knew that she was far too fragile to be a wife.

These were the aunts then – the Old Girls – whose company must be borne. They were always kind to her and she would have liked them if only she could have trusted them.

Now Aunt Elizabeth had taken up Charlotte’s piece of embroidery and was clucking over it in an amused sort of way.

‘Why, dearest Charlotte, this would never do. What would your Papa say if he saw a piece of work like that?’

‘He wouldn’t know that there was anything wrong with it. He’s an authority on women, art and fashion – and that does not I believe include embroidery.’

Aunt Elizabeth gave a little gasp of dismay; Aunt Mary chuckled.

‘One thing we can always say of our dear little Charlotte,’ said Amelia, ‘is that she says what’s in her mind.’

‘How could one speak of what was not in one’s mind?’ asked Charlotte gravely.

‘I meant, dear, that so many people dissemble. They say one thing and mean another.’

‘And is it a fault to be outspoken?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then at least I have one virtue.’

‘You have many, dearest child,’ said Amelia.

‘But,’ said Elizabeth, ‘they do not include embroidering.’

The sisters all laughed.

‘Put it right for me, dear Aunt Libby, before the old … before anyone sees it.’

Covert smiles. They knew she was going to say the old Begum. Perhaps they thought of their mother as that. Perhaps they did not like her any more than Charlotte did, but because they were old and were expected to behave with decorum, they had to pretend. I shall never be like that, thought Charlotte. But then when I’m old I shall be the Queen.

She watched Aunt Elizabeth’s deft fingers unpicking her clumsy stitches.

‘I should like to know,’ she said boldly, ‘when I am to see my mother.’

Hushed silence! But she was not going to let them pretend. ‘I have heard, of course, about this Delicate Investigation. What a strange way of describing an investigation!’

The Princesses looked at each other in dismay and Mary said: ‘It describes it exactly. It is a very delicate matter.’

‘You mean one that is not to be discussed.’

‘I mean one, dear, which it is better to forget.’

‘But how can I forget it when I don’t see her? It’s weeks and weeks … months and months …’

‘His Majesty thinks it best,’ said Aunt Elizabeth as though that solved the matter.

But everything His Majesty thought best was not necessarily so – for instance, refusing to allow his daughters to marry and making them live this life of frustration until they were ready to do almost everything to escape it.

‘A child should surely be allowed to see its own mother,’ said Charlotte primly.

‘It would depend,’ replied Augusta mysteriously.

‘On what?’

‘On circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’

‘Oh, dear Charlotte, you must not speak in that er … peremptory manner. It’s not really very becoming.’

‘But I want to know.’

‘You will understand,’ said Amelia gently. ‘All in good time.’

‘But Willie Austin is not my brother.’

Augusta said: ‘Where does the child hear these things?’ No one answered.

Charlotte knew that they were thinking she was far too precocious. Perhaps having parents who hated each other and created public scandals made one precocious.

‘Everyone whispers about them,’ she said scornfully. She was about to mention the cartoon she had seen but thought better of that. They might find some way of stopping her seeing them.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I should be allowed to see my mother.’

Augusta, as the eldest, thinking it behoved her to speak, said: ‘I will speak to the Queen about this. And tell her what you have said.’

‘Not the Queen,’ cried Charlotte in alarm. ‘Tell Grandpapa instead.’

‘I fear it would upset him.’

Charlotte turned to Amelia. ‘If you could tell him … not specially … but one day when you are talking to him. Say I asked about my mother and that a child ought not to be separated from her own mother.’

Amelia smiled. She was accustomed to having to make requests to the King.

‘I’ll see how he is and if I can introduce the subject without upsetting him.’

Charlotte was about to say more when Amelia hurried on: ‘Augusta, do play that latest piece of yours. I am sure Charlotte would like to hear it.’

She would discover little from the aunts, that was certain.

While the music was being played the Duke of York came in. This was Uncle Fred – her favourite among her uncles. He greeted her exuberantly. He was not one to stand on any ceremony.

‘And how is my little niece today?’

‘Very well, Uncle.’

He kissed her warmly; he was very fond of women, as were the rest of the uncles and her father as well, of course. But their trouble was that they could not be faithful for long. The Duke of York had now become quite friendly with his wife although at one time they had hated each other. Aunt Frederica of York interested Charlotte far more than any of the Old Girls; but Uncle Fred was not often at Oatlands where she lived; he was always deep in some love affair with a woman other than his wife.

But she liked him; he was jolly, gay, kind and carefree. A very pleasant sort of uncle to have. She liked him even better than Uncle Augustus, Duke of Sussex, for he had disappointed her when he had left dear Aunt Goosey for another woman.

We are a strange family and no mistake, thought Charlotte. Here are the Old Girls living like nuns in a convent and scarcely allowed out of the old Begum’s pocket while the Old Boys live the most scandalous lives. Uncle Augustus had not been considered to be married to Goosey although he had declared he was at one time and there had been a case to prove he wasn’t. He had married her it was true, but this was in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act which Grandpapa had made law and which said that no member of the royal family under the age of twenty-five could marry without his consent. Uncle Augustus had married Goosey – she was going to have a child – and then the State had said No, they were not married, and Goosey’s baby was a bastard, which had infuriated Uncle Augustus at the time; but perhaps he did not care now since he and Goosey had parted.

As for Uncle Fred, he had disliked his wife and refused to live with her almost from the first; Charlotte was glad they were good friends now though, for she liked them both; in fact she thought they were her favourite uncle and aunt.

Fred was clearly not clever like the Prince of Wales; he just wanted to enjoy life and to see everyone about him enjoying it too. He had been her father’s greatest friend at one time and they still were devoted to each other. In fact all the brothers were friends, which was one of the pleasantest aspects of the family, and unusual too. For, thought Charlotte, we are a quarrelling family as a rule.

‘What’s the music?’ asked Uncle Fred.

‘One of Augusta’s own,’ Amelia put in.

‘It’s good. Makes you want to dance, eh, Charlotte?’

Charlotte agreed that it did.

‘Play it in waltz time, Gussy,’ said Uncle Fred; and Augusta complied.

‘Come, Charlotte,’ said Uncle Fred, ‘we’ll waltz together.’

‘Oh, Uncle, I don’t know how.’

‘Time you did then. Don’t you agree, girls?’

Aunt Elizabeth thought that when the time came for Charlotte to learn to waltz her father would decide that she should have lessons.

‘I’ll take the blame for introducing them prematurely,’ said Uncle Fred. He was on his feet and holding out his hands to Charlotte.

This was better than sitting stitching or trying to prise information out of aunts who were determined not to give it.

‘Now, Charlotte, hold your head up, take my hand … thus. Off we go.’

She was awkward, she knew, but this was only Uncle Fred who was never critical.

‘Capital! Capital!’ he kept saying. ‘That’s our clever Charlotte.’

She smiled up at him gratefully. His protuberant blue eyes – such a feature of the family – were alight with kindness, and his cheeks were scarlet with exertion, but he was clearly enjoying this.

‘Come, Mary,’ he said. ‘And you too, Elizabeth.’

They rose and waltzed round the room. Sophia who was not very strong and Amelia, who of course would become quite breathless if she attempted to dance, were the spectators.

‘That was good,’ cried Uncle Fred, when the music stopped. ‘I’ll tell your father he ought to be proud of his daughter. You’ll soon be gracing his ballroom, Madam Charlotte.’

Charlotte standing there flushed, slightly breathless, was happy. She pictured herself at Carlton House. She could see clearly the room with the tall pier-glasses which gave the impression that the room went on and on. She thought of the glittering chandeliers which threw down a rosy light on all the company and the crimson velvet hangings with their gold fringe and tassels.

In the midst of all this splendour she would dance and the Prince of Wales would notice her and be proud of her. He would stand before her and make that bow at which everyone marvelled and say: ‘I think my daughter should dance with me.’

And seated nearby, looking exactly as a queen should look – and that was as different as it was possible for anyone to be from the old Begum – would be Mrs Fitzherbert, smiling, well pleased, because everything was well between the Prince of Wales and his daughter.

How often all her dreams came back to this happy ending; and it was only in reality that it seemed as far away as ever.

Seated at her table in Lower Lodge, her books about her, Charlotte heard the sound of carriage wheels. She ran to the window and looking out saw her mother alighting.

She has come to see me! thought Charlotte excitedly. At last we shall be together. She must have ridden all this way from Blackheath to see me.

As she ran from the schoolroom she collided with Dr Nott who was about to enter and nearly knocked him over.

‘My gracious me,’ he murmured; but she had run past him. She would put on a clean dress, for the one she was wearing was a little grubby. Not that her mother would notice.

Lady de Clifford came running from her room crying: ‘Princess Charlotte, what has happened? Where are you going?’

‘My lady, my mother has come.’

‘It’s impossible,’ cried Lady de Clifford, turning pale.

‘I tell you I have seen her with my own eyes.’

Lady de Clifford knew that the King’s orders were that the Princess of Wales was not to visit her daughter. If Charlotte had indeed seen her mother then the Princess had come to Windsor in defiance of that order.

Flustered and trembling she decided she must delay Charlotte. ‘You should be ready when you are sent for,’ she said, although she did not believe that Charlotte would be sent for. Oh dear, what a dreadful task this was! She would die of palpitations one day. Trying to keep Charlotte in order was enough, but to have these unfortunate situations thrust upon her by her eccentric relations was more than a woman could endure.

‘You should put on a clean dress … and comb your hair and then … you will be in readiness,’ she babbled.

‘Help me then. I must be ready. I daresay they will give us only an hour together or something silly.’

Charlotte hastily put on a clean dress and allowed Lady de Clifford to comb her hair.

‘I should return to the schoolroom,’ she said, ‘for they will expect me to be there and that is where they will look for me.’

Lady de Clifford agreed and returned to the schoolroom with her.

They had not been there very long when they heard the commotion from without.

The Princess of Wales had come out to her carriage. Oh dear, thought Lady de Clifford, she does not look in the least like a princess. No wonder the dear Prince …

Caroline’s black wig was a little awry; her heavily rouged cheeks were startling beside the white lead with which the rest of her face was covered apart from those very black brows which had been painted on.

She was talking loudly in her atrocious English. She was trembling with rage, clenching and unclenching her fists and even turned to shake one at the windows.

It was clear to Lady de Clifford that the Princess of Wales was being turned away from Windsor.

‘Cliffy,’ whispered Charlotte, ‘what does it mean?’

She wanted to run down to the carriage to tell her mother that if no one else wanted her she did.

Lady de Clifford had laid a hand on her shoulder; she was saying: ‘I doubt not the Princess has come without an invitation.’

‘Without an invitation! To see me … her own daughter!’

The coachman had whipped up the horses, Lady de Clifford noticed with relief, and the carriage started to move.

‘They have driven my mother away,’ cried the Princess Charlotte.

Gentle Amelia tried to comfort Charlotte.

‘You see, Charlotte dear, His Majesty cannot visit the Princess nor allow her to visit us until this little matter is settled.’

‘What little matter?’

‘The Princess of Wales has been entertaining people at Montague House who are not quite the sort of people who – who should be the friends of royal people, do you understand?’

‘How is that? I met Sir Sydney Smith there. He is a great Admiral and he fought for his country. You should hear how he defended Saint Jean d’Acre. He told me about this. He could tell wonderful tales. And he used to carry me round on his shoulders.’

‘He could have been a very brave and daring sailor but still unfit to mix with a royal princess. You are too young to understand.’

‘I am not too young,’ said Charlotte rudely. ‘I liked Sir Sydney. And there was Thomas Lawrence too. He is a very great painter. It is a good thing to paint well, I suppose you’ll agree.’

‘It is very good, but to be able to paint does not mean that one is fit …’

‘And my mother is not allowed to see me because she knows these people?’

‘One day you will understand.’

‘One day!’ cried Charlotte scornfully. ‘What’s the good of one day when this is Now. Why is it that learning some things is so good for one and others have to wait till “one day”! I should have thought all knowledge was good. Don’t you think that’s true, Aunt Amelia?’

Aunt Amelia said that when she was older she would understand; and she then began to cough; and as, when Aunt Amelia coughed, everyone had to try to stop her doing so because it so upset the King, Charlotte had to run and get her soothing syrup and that was the end of that little conversation.

But, determined Charlotte, they are not going to keep me from my mother. I love her, and she loves me. She wouldn’t have come to Windsor to be insulted by Them if she did not.

She thought constantly of her mother and longed to see her again.

Augusta told her that there was to be a party for young people at Windsor and she could ask anyone she wished.

‘I thought,’ said Aunt Augusta, ‘that you might like to askLady de Clifford’s grandson, young George Keppel, and perhaps little Sophia Keppel as well. You may invite them both if you wish.’

‘You said that I might ask anyone I wished?’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘Then I ask my mother,’ she said boldly.

Aunt Augusta looked as though she were going to have a fit of the vapours. Really, she confided to Elizabeth afterwards, Charlotte could be most embarrassing.