The Third George

The Princess Dowager takes her leave

The family troubles were not over. It was hardly likely that Cumberland would learn his lesson; no sooner had the Grosvenor scandal died down than he came to his brother in a mood of something between contrition and truculence and told him that he had something of importance to tell him.

"You will hear of it sooner or later," he told George, 'and I would rather you heard it first from my own lips.”

George's spirits sank. He could see from his brother's expression that it would be something which would not please him.

"You'd better tell, eh?”

"I... I am married.”

"Married," spluttered George. "But ... but it's impossible. How ... can that be?”

"Your Majesty should know. You take your oath before the priest and ...”

Cumberland was looking sly, reminding George of that ceremony he had undergone with Hannah Lightfoot. George said: "You had better tell me the worst.”

"She's beautiful. I would have made her my mistress but she would have none of that. Marriage or nothing ... so it was marriage.”

"Who is she?" asked George.

"Mrs. Horton. You've heard of her. There's been plenty of scandal about us. Widow of a Derbyshire squire. Lord Irnham's daughter.”

"But this is ... impossible. You cannot marry a woman like that!”

"I have, brother. That's what I'm telling you. It is possible ... because it has been done.”

"You ... idiot.”

"I thought you would say that.”

George remembered hearing the gossip. The lady with the eyelashes a yard long. And his brother was a fool. One would have thought that having been caught over Grosvenor's wife he would have been more careful. But no. North had provided the 13,000 damages for that affair ... and as soon as it was settled, this young idiot had gone off and committed another piece of folly. Would he never learn?

George was really angry. He thought how he had sacrificed lovely Sarah Lennox for plain Charlotte because he thought it was his duty and here was his brother living with no restraint whatsoever, becoming involved in one scandal and then plunging straight into the next.

He said : "I... I will not receive her ... nor you. You understand. Eh? What?”

Cumberland lifted his shoulders and accepted his dismissal. Old George wouldn't keep it up, he knew. He was too good-hearted and he hated quarrels. He'd give way in time just as he had over the Grosvenor case.

The Princess Dowager asked the King to come and see her. She did not feel equal to making the journey to him, but she did not wish him to know it. She was very worried about her family. Her sons were wild; there was no doubt about that. Her daughter Augusta was very dissatisfied with her life in Brunswick and what Augusta's daughter would grow up like she dared not think. It must be a very strange household with her father paying more attention to his mistress than to her mother; and how would proud Augusta react to that? And then Caroline Matilda whose case was the worst of all and did not bear thinking of. And now this news about Henry Frederick. Oh, what a fool. Women would be his downfall; and now he had been caught by this siren with the long eyelashes. How like him to be caught by eyelashes. He was without sense and without dignity.

She heard that he was extremely coarse; his only cultural interest being in music. But the whole family shared that interest. And now ... this disastrous marriage.

When the King came to her she seated herself with her back to the light that he might not see the ravages pain had made on her face. George was too indignant about this new turn in the family's affairs to notice.

He said: "You wished to speak about Henry Frederick I don't doubt, Mother, eh?”

"It's a sorry business.”

"I won't receive them.”

"That can't undo the mischief; and perhaps it is not wise ...”

George's mouth was set along the stubborn lines with which she had now become familiar.

"I shall not receive them," he said; and she knew that that was an end of the matter. She tried again though.

"Family quarrels never did any good. In the last two reigns they were disastrous to the family and made it a laughing stock to the people. We do not wish that.”

"True," agreed the King, 'but I won't receive them.”

He would change, of course. He was not vindictive. She knew what it would be. The couple would not be received for a while and then all would be forgiven. But it was no use telling George that in his present mood. She changed the subject.

"George, there should be some provision against this sort of thing.”

"What provision could we take?”

"You could make a law that royal persons would not be allowed to marry without the sovereign's consent.”

"Ha! They would marry without it. Can you imagine Henry Frederick coming to me to ask my permission? Eh? What? No. He would marry first and tell me afterwards. That is the respect I get from my brothers.”

"What I mean is, George, that you could pass some Marriage Act. Then if any one of the family married without your consent the marriage would be invalid.”

"The Parliament would never pass such a law.”

"I think you should consider it, George.”

But his mouth was set. "The Parliament would not have it," he said.

And she felt the pain beginning to nag and when that happened she had no power to do anything, but will it to leave her. The change in the Princess Dowager was now so apparent that she could no longer hide it.

"I fear," said George, 'that this scandal of the Grosvenors and Caroline Matilda's tragedy has upset you far more than anything ever has before, eh?”

"I fear it has," replied the Princess Dowager, ready to admit anything but that her illness had a physical cause.

Lord Bute came to see her; he was distressed at the change in her, and implored her to see the doctors.

"My dear," she answered. "Of what use? I have nothing of which to complain. I am well enough really. It is just these family troubles.”

"My dearest," replied Bute, 'you should see the physicians. There might be something they could do.”

"No," she answered. "I shall be all right very soon. It is just these family scandals. I have allowed them to affect me too deeply.”

It was useless to try to persuade her. She had made up her mind. When she was alone, she looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see this nagging burning thing which was in her throat. She thought of her husband's mother, her indomitable mother-in-law Queen Caroline, who had been afflicted with an internal rupture which she thought indelicate and had suffered in silence even as she, Augusta, was suffering now, while she declared to the world that there was nothing wrong with her and refused to see the doctors. She hated illness, just as Queen Caroline had done, and she would not recognize its existence. But there came the day when it could no longer be hidden.

She lay on her bed unable to protest and they brought the doctors to her. They quickly discovered the Thing in her throat and they gave their grave verdict to the King.

"A cancer in the throat, Your Majesty.”

"And there is hope ... eh? What?”

"No, Your Majesty. There is nothing that can be done. Her Highness cannot have many more weeks left to her.”

George was heartbroken. His family feeling had always been strong; and from his childhood she had been there to guide him. Even now he would hear her strong voice breaking in on his dreams: "George, be a king.”

"Everything that I am I owe to her," he told Charlotte, and Charlotte, good wife that she was, wept with him.

Lord Bute and the King were close again in a shared grief. Bute had been wrong; he had been immoral, but he had loved the Princess. He had been as a husband to her and her happiness had been centred on him. At such a time one could not allow one's respectability to intrude on one's deeper feelings.

"I cannot believe that she will leave us," cried the King. "How can anything be the same without her?”

When she received visitors, the Princess still went through a pretence that there was nothing seriously wrong with her. The phrase: "When I am well..." was constantly on her lips. But they knew and so did she that she never would be well.

She brooded about those two men whom she would leave behind her and who she believed would suffer through her absence. Bute he would grieve for her; but Miss Vansittart would comfort him; and he had his family and Lady Bute was a good sensible woman. He would not be left entirely alone.

And George? George was a fully-grown king now and he no longer confided in his mother.

George had his advisers and how often they advised him to folly! But she should not grieve too much at leaving George for he did not take counsel with her now.

Charlotte? She felt guilty about Charlotte. Charlotte might have been a help to her husband. She was not a stupid woman. But she never would now. She herself and dear Lord Bute had decided what position Charlotte should occupy about the King when she first arrived in England and they and her constant childbearing had made it impossible for her to influence him in the smallest way.

So now he stood alone among his ministers. George, who was growing more and more aware of state affairs; George who saw himself as the King who would rule his country; who was developing a growing obstinacy; who believed that he knew best.

Trouble, trouble, thought the Princess Augusta. The family growing up and causing scandal.

There were whisperings about her sons and she did not know how true the stories were nor would she now. But she did foresee trouble with the family who seemed to have a genius for getting into it although they had a genius for nothing else. Trouble, she thought. But I shall not be here. It was all round the throne. It was brewing in America. Was George strong enough to hold it off? Was North strong enough to guide him? She did not know. All she knew was that she would not be there to see.

Her women dressed her to receive the King and the Queen. Perhaps, she thought, the last time.

Another presentiment that the end was near. The pain in her throat was almost unendurable. "Let me not betray it to them," she prayed. Her women came in to tell her that the King and Queen had already arrived. She was astonished. It was so unlike George to be either too early or late. He was almost as precise about time as his grandfather had been.

George came in, took her hand and kissed it fervently.

"You are early, George, my dearest son.”

"I mistook the time," lied George. He thought: She is dying and she will not admit it. Oh, my brave mother who has lived for me.

The Princess Dowager embraced Charlotte more warmly than usual. Poor Charlotte, who had been shut out deliberately. It was a mistake, thought the Princess. Did I think that I was immortal, that I would go on forever, so that he had no need of someone to take my place?

She sat bolt upright on her chair trying to concentrate on what they were saying. And George sat beside her, a pain in his heart because he knew he was going to lose her and that this could well be the last time they sat together like this.

He could have wept, but he knew that would distress her; and he wanted to tell her that he loved her, that she was his dearest mother and he would never forget her care for him. But he dared not say these things for she would not wish it; and how much more painful it was to sit there beside her pretending that all was well.

When her son and daughter-in-law had left her the Princess Dowager collapsed on to her bed. I cannot lie to them much longer, she thought. She was right. She could not hold off the doctors now. She was too ill for pretence.

She was aware of the King at her bedside; she saw his eyes wide with grief, his lips twitch with emotion.

"Farewell, my good son George," whispered the Princess Dowager.

"Oh, dearest and best of mothers ..." answered George. He turned in despair to the doctors.

"Is there nothing ... nothing that can be done, eh? Nothing ... nothing. Eh? What?”

The doctors shook their heads. There was nothing.