Victoria in the Wings

The King is Dead

THE KING’S HEALTH had deteriorated rapidly. As many as eleven leeches had been applied to his leg at one time; punctures had been made in his thighs and ankles to draw off the water; he had grown enormous with dropsy. It was evident that he could not live long.

The news spread all over London and down to Brighton. The King is dying.

Mrs Fitzherbert, now living in Brighton, wept when she heard the news. It was long since they had met but she had always regarded him as her husband; she had always hoped that some time before the end they would come together.

He had loved her, she was sure, as deeply as he had been capable of loving anyone; it had not unfortunately been deep enough to keep him faithful; and she had overlooked so many infidelities. He had learned too late that they should never have parted. But there were two great barriers to the happiness of their life together: his crown and her religion. He dared not admit that he, the King, had married a Catholic; and she could never renounce her faith.

Ill-starred lovers, she thought; and yet there had been happy years.

The happiest of my life, she thought.

And now that he was dying did he think of her? Did he remember the day forty-five years ago when in the drawing-room of her house in Park Street they had taken their marriage vows? They had been in their twenties then – she twenty-nine and he some years younger. She was seventy-four now. An old woman; but not too old to forget and not too old to hope that now that he was leaving this life he would want to go with his hand in hers.

She could not stay in Brighton, so she travelled up to London. Who knew? He might express a wish to see her and if he did she must be on the watch.

She waited for some sign; none came, and at last she could not resist taking up her pen and writing to him.

After many repeated struggles with myself, from the apprehension of appearing troublesome or intruding upon Your Majesty, after so many years of continual silence, my anxiety respecting Your Majesty has got the better of my scruples and I trust Your Majesty will believe me most sincere when I assure you how truly I have grieved to hear of your sufferings …

It was true and she could not see the page because the tears blurred it.

So many wasted years, she thought. I should have been with him. I am his wife. Why could he not have been true to our marriage? If he had, what misery we should have been saved.

But they had parted. He had always said it was not his wish, but he would not give up Lady Hertford for her sake. And when he had left Lady Hertford it had been Lady Conyngham, the harpy, who cared more for diamonds and sapphires than she did for the King, and made no secret of it.

Oh, the folly of it!

And now it was too late. But at least he should know that she thought of him.

She went on writing and when she had finished she sent for a messenger to take her letter to the King.

He could not see very clearly. The faces about his bed seemed to be floating in space. He was not even sure where it was.

He heard them talking. ‘We should give it to him. Mrs Fitzherbert …’

Her name roused him. He cried: ‘What is it?’

‘It is a letter, Sir, from Mrs Fitzhèrbert.’

He smiled. ‘Give it to me.’

She had not forgotten him. She had written to him. He held the paper in his hand. Her paper … her writing. Maria, he thought. So you did not forget. All those years you remembered and at the end you wrote to me.

He could not read what she had written. It did not matter. She had written. He put the letter under his pillow. It gave him great comfort.

Mrs Fitzherbert stood at her window, waiting. Surely some messenger would come? He would wish to see her to say a last farewell. He must. He could not die without seeing her once more. She had made it clear in her letter that she longed to see him, to hear him say his last farewell to her. Perhaps to tell her that he had never forgotten, that she was the one he had always loved.

If she could see him, she would treasure the memory for the rest of her life. It would not be long before her turn came.

He must send for her. He must.

She lay on her couch listening. The sound of carriage wheels on the road? No, they had gone right past.

All through the night she lay fully dressed, waiting for a summons that did not come.

And he was sinking fast; one thing he remembered was the letter under his pillow. Her letter. She had written to him at the end.

Maria, Maria, he thought. We should never have parted.

And Maria was waiting through the night for the message that would never come.

He was dead – George the King, who had shocked the country with his scandalous adventures; who had been known as the First Gentleman of Europe; the elegant dandy, the man of exquisite taste, who had enriched the land with magnificent buildings, who had given them Carlton House, the Pavilion, Nash’s terraces and Regent Street; who had turned Buckingham House into a Palace and had made Windsor Castle habitable. Prinney, who had been loved in youth and hated in his middle and old age, the incomparable George.

No one mourned as Maria Fitzherbert did. She was so ill that she had to keep to her bed. She was sad thinking of what might have been, and bitterly hurt because he had not answered her letter.

That was until she knew. And then they told her that he had worn her picture about his neck at his death and in his will he had left the instruction:

I wish that the picture of my beloved wife, my Maria Fitzherbert, may be interred with me, suspended round my neck by a ribbon as I used to wear it when I lived and placed upon my heart.

They would carry out his wishes.

And in death, she thought, we shall not be divided. She heard of his inability to read her letter; she was told how he had seized it and kept it under his pillow.

So she knew that at the last he had been thinking of her even as she had been thinking of him.