Victoria in the Wings

The Queen and the Regent

QUEEN CHARLOTTE WAS at Bath where she had gone to take the waters when the news of her granddaughter’s death was brought to her. She fainted when she heard it. Her women took her to her bed and when she had recovered a little she lay there thinking of what this calamity would mean to the family.

‘Who would have thought it,’ she murmured to her daughter Elizabeth, who sat dutifully at her bedside. ‘I had no notion that anything could go wrong. Charlotte was so young.’

‘It was a long pregnancy, Mamma,’ Elizabeth reminded her. I think the doctors were beginning to get a little anxious.’

‘Poor George! His grief must be overwhelming. We must return at once. It will be necessary for us to make plans.’

‘Mamma, you should rest awhile.’

The Queen looked surprised that her forty-seven-year-old daughter, even in such circumstances, should presume to tell her what she should do; but because of these circumstances she decided to ignore the lapse. Elizabeth, conscious of her indiscretion, added quickly: ‘Your physician advises it.’

The Queen closed her eyes. I’m an old woman, she thought. There is not much time left to me and something will have to be done very quickly. So many of them and none of them has given us a legitimate heir. They are no longer young. It is almost like a blight on the family. Who would have believed it possible that with seven sons there should not be one legitimate child of the young generation!

George was the only one who had done his duty. Poor dear George, fastidious and elegant in the extreme, who had been obliged to marry That Woman. Of course he could have had her niece, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, instead of the King’s niece, Caroline of Brunswick; and that was where George had made the biggest mistake of his life. But she condoled with him; she loved him, and no one else in the world had ever touched her cold nature as he did, her first-born, her clever, beautiful George, whom she had had modelled when an infant; and she still kept that delightful baby form on her dressing-table. She must see George without delay.

He would be prostrate with grief. He and Charlotte had always been in conflict, but then – though not wishing to think ill of one so recently dead one must be truthful – Charlotte had been difficult. A hoyden, no less; no true sense of royalty, too ready to mix with the common people and somewhat disrespectful to her aunts referring to them as the Old Girls and to her grandmother as The Begum. Once she had bracketed the Queen with apple tart – or was it boiled mutton? – as the only two things she really disliked in the world. Then there had been all that trouble with her mother, running away to join her and causing a most unpleasant contretemps, arousing public opinion against the Regent and sympathy for his wicked wife. And then refusing to marry the Prince of Orange when her father had made it expressly clear that he wished her to, and breaking off her engagement as though she were some ordinary young girl to be permitted wild fancies, instead of a Princess and heiress to the throne.

But she had shown signs of improvement when she married Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the man of her choice; she had been in love with him and Charlotte never did anything in moderation. They had lived at Claremont together quite modestly and the Princess had often been seen walking in the neighbourhood clinging to her husband’s arm. It really was most un-royal; but the people liked it; and heaven knew the family needed public approbation badly. Charlotte the hoyden had done more to bring popularity to the family than any other member of it; so that was something to be grateful for. One had charming reports from Claremont of the harmony of the royal pair; how Prince Leopold sang to her, read to her and wisely impressed on her the need for dignified behaviour; and how she listened to him as she had never listened to anyone else; and declared that she adored him and that the magnitude of her love could only be compared in its enormity with the national debt.

Even the Regent had become slightly less unpopular and treated to silence in the streets instead of abuse while the whole nation waited for the birth of their darling Princess’s child.

And now … It was difficult to grasp what had happened. She felt old and ill and all that she wanted was to shut herself away and forget the tragedies of her family. But she was not the woman to do that. She had had crises enough in her life. She considered it; coming to England a plain little German princess, unwanted by the King who was in love with someone else, unable to speak the language, learning very soon that being the Queen of England meant a perpetual state of giving birth or waiting to do so. Fifteen children in a little over twenty years. All must agree that she had done her duty. It was only now that she was beginning to wonder whether she had done it too well. But her eldest son had made everything worth while … now, though it had not always been so. The only emotion in her life had been her feeling for him; true, it had come near to hatred at the time of the King’s first lapse from sanity – or at least his first public lapse – when there had been all that conflict over the Regency and she and Pitt had stood against the Prince and Fox.

Happily that was over; she had only hated him because he would not love her; he merely had to show some affection and she was at his side. She thanked God that now they had come to an understanding; they were allies; she had admitted that George had always been the most important one in her life, and he, sentimental in the extreme, overflowing with affection – providing it did not interfere with his pleasure – accepted her devotion and in return made her his friend and confidante. So as she advanced in years she had gained some comfort. The King, her husband, whom she had never loved and who had put her into a subservient position from the day she arrived in England, making of her, as she often thought resentfully, a prize cow whose only task was to produce a calf every year – was recognized to be insane; adored George was the Regent; and they were friends.

All had seemed, though not as well as it might have been if the others had done their duty, at least reasonably acceptable while Charlotte lived and showed herself able to bear children.

And this brought her back to the terrible calamity which the family had to face.

She had lost her only legitimate grandchild – and with her the baby who would have secured the succession.

Action was imperative. What were a few rheumatic pains, recurring dizzy spells? She must return to London and see George without delay.

The Regent was in Suffolk with a shooting party when the news reached him that Charlotte’s labour pains had begun. It was seemly that he should be at Claremont at the birth of his grandchild who would be an heir to the throne so he left at once.

He arrived too late to see Charlotte alive.

Like his mother he could not believe this could have happened. Charlotte had been so vital; that she should have lost the child was a minor tragedy but that she herself should die stunned him. He wept; he embraced the bewildered Leopold who was dumb in his grief, and rode back to Carlton House with the blinds of his carriage drawn.

The whole nation mourned; the people in the street spoke of Charlotte as though she had been a saint. Verses were written of her:

Daughter of England! For a nation’s sighs

A nation’s heart went with thine obsequies.

The darling of the nation was dead. There was nothing to be done but mourn.

When the funeral was over the Queen came to Carlton House to speak very seriously to the Regent.

He received her with a show of great affection and wept affectingly while he talked of Charlotte; he had spoken of little else since her death.

‘My dearest George,’ said the Queen, ‘this is a terrible ordeal for us all and you in particular.’

‘No one can know,’ murmured the Regent. ‘Not even you.’

‘I can imagine,’ said the Queen quickly. ‘But the nation’s affairs must go on and there is little time.’

The Regent was not listening. He said: ‘I have decided to go to Brighton. I want to shut myself away for a while and I am asking Gloucester to spare me Mary for a few days.’

The Queen nodded. Mary, his favourite sister, had married her cousin the Duke of Gloucester last year. Mary had been forty then and had been eagerly desiring to marry her cousin for years, but the King had been so firmly against any of his daughters marrying and in fact there were few possible husbands, the qualifications of being both royal and Protestant proving so hard to fill. Mary had gleefully married ‘Slice’ as those dreadful cartoon people had christened Gloucester (comparing him with a slice of Gloucester cheese) and although Slice was proving quite a martinet of a husband Mary preferred any husband to none at all, so was not dissatisfied.

‘Mary will be an excellent companion and you always have enjoyed her company. My dear George, I understand your reluctance to think of anything but your unhappiness, but I do believe this to be an urgent matter of State. I may not be here much longer …’

He placed his hand appealingly over hers. ‘I forbid you to say such a thing.’

Dear George! Always so charming. How much did he really care? she wondered. But he had such a charming way of pretending that he did that it did not seem to matter. She would rather have George pretending to care than the genuine devotion of any of the others.

‘Your brothers must consider their obligations,’ she said.

‘How I agree with you.’

‘Immediately. There must be no delay. They must marry and produce legitimate children before it is too late.’

‘You are right, of course. Our recent loss makes this necessary.’

‘Unless our branch of the family is to become extinct. It is so extraordinary. All these sons … and not one child among them.’

‘Their duty should be made known to them.’

‘As I said, without delay.’

‘When I return from Brighton I will put the case before them.’

When he returned. It should be now. There was not a moment to lose. But one did not argue with the Regent. He had such a sense of the rightness of everything. First he must mourn the daughter for whom he had not greatly cared during her lifetime; he must shut himself away at Brighton with only Mary to comfort him. He must play his part of bereaved father, before he gave his thoughts to reminding his brothers of their duty.

The Queen decided that there was no need for her to wait so long. She would intimate to her sons that the Regent had certain propositions to put before them; and even the least intelligent of them must realize what they were.