The public was excited. This was far more dramatic than the recent Mary Anne Clarke scandal. A royal Duke attacked in his bed; his valet murdered. There would be an inquest. What would come out of that? Speculation ran wild.
The valet had a very beautiful wife. Everyone knew the weakness of the royal princes where women were concerned. Why should a valet attack a duke? Why should the valet be murdered?
The King was becoming quite incoherent.
‘This terrible scandal,’ he said. ‘What does it mean, eh, what does it mean, eh, what? This is worse than anything the Prince of Wales ever did. Ernest— what does it mean— what can it mean?’
There was one fact which kept hammering on his mind.
The valet had a beautiful wife. He kept seeing pictures of Ernest and a woman — a dark woman. Italian? Oh, God, help me, groaned the King. This family of mine will drive me mad.
The inquest was conducted with decorum and respect for the royal family. It was not easy to sort out the evidence. It seemed incomprehensible. Why should the valet attempt to murder the Duke and then commit suicide?
The public had the answer. It was discussed in all the coffee and chocolate houses. It was simple, wasn’t it? Sellis had found his wife in bed with the Duke, had attacked him, and the Duke retaliated by murdering the valet and making it appear as suicide.
It seemed the only logical answer. And knowing these princes, a very reasonable one.
At the inquest the verdict of, suicide was brought in. Sellis, it was said, had gone mad, had attacked his master and realizing what he had done had committed suicide. That the Duke had been attacked was indisputable. The blow on his head had cut deep and could have killed him. Why the Duke’s sword should have been stained with fresh blood was never answered. But the people had their verdict and they were not going to be diverted from it by a mere jury, ‘What would happen to us, eh,’ they asked each other, ‘if we committed murder?’
‘Hanged by the neck. That’s what. But then we’re not royal dukes.’
The King muttered to himself as he paced up and down his apartments. ‘What next, eh? What next?’
The Prince of Wales discussed the state of affairs with Lady Hertford. He was most humble with the lady as he needed to be for she made it clear that she would not be an easy victim. That was why he was so desperate. She was not beautiful, but her elegance was supreme. She was the best dressed woman in London and cared passionately for the cut of a gown and that the jewellery she wore should be in absolute keeping with her ensemble.
‘Perfection!’ the Prince would sigh looking at her. But she was frigid and made it clear that she had her reputation to consider. She had no need of the gifts he could bestow for she was the wife of one of the richest peers in the country. He might win her by accepting her advice but he was supposed to be a Whig and she was the most ardent of Tories.
This made the pursuit of her full of difficulties and the more exciting because of it.
But she was most gracious when he talked politics and if he were to ask her advice she became almost affectionate, so different from Maria. There could not have been a woman less like Maria. Was that why he was attracted? He knew he wanted them both. But he had Maria. Maria was his affectionate and devoted wife; there was no need to pursue Maria.
But he was madly in love with his elusive frigid fashion plate.
Now she listened with interest to the state of the King’s health.
‘It grows worse, I hear,’ she said. Her eyes glinted. ‘It could mean that he cannot live much longer.’
A king! she thought. Power! The Tory party triumphant! That was a consideration. But while King George III was alive it was a mere dream and Lady Hertford was not a dreamer; she liked cold reality.
She would not talk of the King’s death. That was unwise; and she was a shrewd woman.
‘It could mean a regency,’ she temporized.
‘If I became regent,’ he said, ‘there is nothing I would not do that you asked.
You would be at my right hand. How fortunate to have the most beautiful woman in England for my chief minister.’
And the Fitzherbert? wondered Lady Hertford. A Catholic. Inwardly she shuddered. She did not believe in the emancipation of Catholics, which of course the Prince did at the moment. It was not only the Fitzherbert influence but he was a man of tolerance— weakness she called it.
But if he even came to power— through the Crown or the Regency— she would certainly feel more friendly towards him.
The Prince realized how interested Lady Hertford was in the possibility of a Regency; and he wanted her to understand that this possibility was by no means remote.
‘I heard that my father remarked on his way to open Parliament that he was going to begin his speech by My Lords and Peacocks. I believe they were in a state of apprehension expecting him to carry out his threat.’
‘But he did not,’ said Lady Hertford. ‘If he had that would have been the end.’
‘He has deteriorated terribly in the last weeks. These scandals about Fred and Ernest —’
Lady Hertford pursed her lips. She did not like scandal. The Prince had been about to tell her of an incident which had been reported to him of how when the King had inspected the royal yacht, his eyes had fallen on an exceptionally pretty woman whom he had approached and regarded in manner which was alien to what was expected of him.
‘My word,’ he had exclaimed, very audibly, ‘what a pretty bottom! I’d like to slap that bottom.’ Those watching had choked with laughter and the King had sought to embrace the young woman who had quickly extricated herself, made a quick curtsey and run off.
Such incidents in public meant that he must be near breaking point.
Poor father, thought the Prince with compassion. But he did have to retire, it would mean the Regency.
And if the Regency were his, he believed, then so would be Lady Hertford.
Lady Hertford to satisfy his need for romance— always so strong in him; and Maria to go home to like a nice warm featherbed— always his great comfort in life, his wife, his soul— but to whom he had grown accustomed so that he must seek romance elsewhere.
When Caroline heard of the Prince’s penchant for Lady Hertford she shrieked with laughter.
‘He’s a fool, of course,’ she told Lady Charlotte. ‘He’d be wise to keep to Maria. He doesn’t realize when he’s got a treasure. They say he sits and looks at Madam Hertford with tears in his eyes and longing in his expression. And that Maria Fitzherbert is very angry with him. They quarrel, and she has a temper, our paragon. Not that I can’t understand that— married to that trying man. But it makes me laugh— oh, it does make me laugh, Lady Charlotte my dear, to think of these fat middle-aged people behaving like young people in love.’
She wanted to hear how the romance of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s husband progressed. And she asked everyone who came to see her to tell her what they knew.
They could not keep the news from the King any longer. Amelia was very ill.
With the coming of the autumn she contracted what was known as St. Anthony’s Fire.
The fact that the King’s jubilee was being celebrated made this even more tragic to him. Fifty years since he had ascended the throne— fifty years of anxieties and fears which had grown greater as years passed. Looking back he could not remember everything that had happened; but two things stood out in his memory; the loss of the American Colonies, and the scandals of his family. He had failed somewhere. All his efforts to be a good man and a good king had not brought him success. He had become a tragic old fellow.
‘More dead than alive sometimes,’ he mumbled. ‘And oh, God, I wish I were dead for I am afraid I am going mad.’ He was half-blind, tormented by desires for women which he had never fulfilled in his youth because he was so determined to be a good husband to a wife whom he had never wanted, worried by his children, and now he faced the greatest tragedy of all: his darling Amelia was dying.
Yes, he must face it. She was going. She coul
d not live.
Everyone knew it although they were trying to keep it from him. They had said: ‘Amelia can do more for him than anyone else. Amelia can soothe him, comfort him.’ And so she had with her frail delicate beauty and her soothing voice and her love for him which had made all his sufferings worthwhile.
He sent for her physicians.
‘Tell me the truth,’ he cried. ‘Don’t try to delude me. You understand, eh, what? I want to know the truth. Is my daughter better? Is she, eh, what?’
‘She is as well as can be expected, Your Majesty.’
‘I expect her to be well. Is she as well as that? Tell me. Save her life. Is it too much to ask, eh, what? Go back to her. What are you doing here? You should be with her. Go to her— Tell her— Tell her—’
And he covered his face with his hands.
The physicians looked at each other. He needed their services as much as his daughter.
The Princess Mary came to him, her face blotched with tears. It was Mary who had loved Amelia best of all his daughters and who had scarcely left the sick room. That made him love Mary.
‘What is it?’ he cried as he stumbled towards her.
‘Papa, she would like to see you— now.’
He went to her room. She smiled at him. Poor Papa, who looked so wild with his jutting white brows and his red face. But he was her good kind father who had also doted on her and been charmed by her and whom it had been her duty always to soothe and comfort.
‘Dearest Papa, I am going to leave you.’
He nodded and the tears began to fall down his cheeks.
‘You must not grieve for me, Papa. I have had a great deal of suffering and shall be past all pain.’
‘My darling!’
‘And I know you love me well enough to be glad of that. Dearest Papa, I have had a ring made for you. I have it here. See it is a lock of my hair under crystal and set round with diamonds. Give me your, finger, Papa. Will you always wear it and remember me?’
She put it on his finger. He stared at it through his tears, holding it close to his eyes that he might see it clearly.
‘My darling child— my best loved—’ he began.
But he could say no more. He was remembering the day twenty-seven years ago when she had been born and all the joy she had brought into his life.
‘No,’ he cried, ‘not this— I cannot lose you. Anything— anything but this.’
And he kissed the mourning ring and watching him, smiling, she sank back on her pillows.
The Princess Amelia was buried at Windsor with great pageantry.
In his apartments the King gave way to his grief. He had lost his love, his darling, and with her his sanity.
No Place for Mrs. Fitzherbert
THE Prince of Wales had decided to celebrate his inauguration as Regent with the most dazzling of spectacles. This was to be held at Carlton House. Many members of the French Royal family, who were in England at this time, were to be guests; and there was talk of nothing else but this extremely grand occasion.
Maria, melancholy in the house in Tilney Street, wondered whether she would receive an invitation. Miss Pigot watched her anxiously.
Thank God, she thought, for darling Minney, who made up for so much. And how could Prinney be so tiresome? What could he see in that woman Hertford?
How could he compare her with Maria?
But he was infatuated by the creature and the talk about them was growing more and more insistent and the more so it became the sadder was poor Maria.
They did not discuss this in front of Minney of course, but when they were alone Maria said: ‘I doubt that I shall receive an invitation.’
‘What nonsense!’ cried Miss Pigot. ‘How could his wife not be invited?’
‘Quite easily because it is clear that he does not consider me to be his wife.’
‘Now that’s talk I won’t listen to. He does. He’s straying a bit now, I’ll confess, but that’s because he does think of you as his wife and he thinks he can have his little games and come back to you.’
‘He could be mistaken,’ said Maria with a show of temper, But how pleased she was when she received her invitation! Her pleasure was brief, however, because she soon learned that at the fête, there was to be a royal table at which the Prince would sit with his special guests including members of the French royal family. For the remainder of the guests there would be a buffet— for two thousand people had been invited— and those who used the buffet would naturally have to serve themselves.
‘Of course you’ll be at the royal table,’ said Miss Pigot. ‘How could it be otherwise?’
‘It could very well be otherwise,’ said Maria grimly. ‘But I shall see that it is not. I am going to discover whether or not I am expected to get my own supper at that buffet.’
‘How can you find out till you get there?’
‘Oh, can’t you see that this would be the ultimate humiliation? I have presided at dinners where that woman was the guest of honour because he wished it. But I will not consent to this. And I am going to Carlton House to ask him.’
Miss Pigot was nervous, but Maria insisted and called at Carlton House where she demanded to see the Prince.
He received her with some surprise but with a show of affection.
‘I have come to ask you where I am to sit at the banquet?’ she asked.
He was embarrassed. How could he explain that Lady Hertford did not expect her to have a place at the table and that he must please Lady Hertford? Maria should understand. It was not that he did not love her; but he was under the influence of the fascinating Lady Hertford and he must obey her wishes.
Maria did not make it easy. She was looking at him with cold dislike— yes, actually dislike.
He said, ‘You know, Madam, you have no place.’
‘None, sir,’ she answered curtly, ‘but such as you choose to give me.’
With that she left him— uneasy, embarrassed and angry with her for not understanding that he could not displease Lady Hertford.
She returned to Miss Pigot in a state of melancholy. ‘This is the end, Piggy.
This is really the end. I can endure no more.’
The Duke of York came to see her. His brother’s first act as Regent had been to reinstate him as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and as he was popular and had been exonerated from guilt in the Mary Anne Clarke scandal, there was no public objection to this. He was fond of Maria and deplored the rift between her and the Prince. She must go to the fête, he told her. People would notice if she were not there. The people accepted her; did she not know that?
‘Oh what use is the people’s acceptance if my husband repudiates me.’
Frederick remonstrated with the Prince who repeated what Lady Hertford had suggested. Maria must not take such a prominent place now that he was Regent, he pointed out. It was all very well for him when Prince of Wales to have a Catholic wife, but the people would not tolerate their Regent— who was in all but name their King— having one.
She would have to accept this for the future.
To this, Maria replied that she never would. But she did not prevent the ladies of her household going to the fête and even provided them with new dresses so that they could do so in style.
The fête was very splendid. The Regent in scarlet and gold lace was a brilliant figure wearing the garter and diamond star. The state apartments were hung with blue velvet embroidered with the fleur-de-lis in honour of the French visitors; the gowns of the women— the costumes of the men, their glittering jewellery— nothing had been seen to rival this for years.
But there were the inevitable malicious whispers.
‘Doesn’t His Highness look grand? And how odd! He is a Regent with two wives— both of whom have stayed at home.’
Maria knew this to be the end. She was not going to be relegated to the position he had planned for her.
It was necessary for political reasons, he said; and she granted this. But it was also necessary f
or personal reasons? Lady Hertford wished it. That was what decided Maria.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘perhaps we should be happier without him.’
‘Oh, Maria!’
‘I should have said: Perhaps I shall. The uncertainties of the last years have been unbearable at times. I am never sure of him. I cannot go on like that. I am his wife. I refuse to be regarded as his mistress. I am fifty-five years old. Surely that’s an age when one should have some dignity. And I have dearest Minney and you. I shall step quietly out of his life.’
And this she proceeded to do. He was uneasy and unhappy when he thought of her, but the chase for Lady Hertford must go on— it had always been so with him. The woman he was pursuing was always the all important factor in his life.
Maria was Maria. He would always regard her as his wife and did not wish to lose her. He wanted her always there in the background, to come back to be comforted when he needed it. But Maria was proud— she had more regality than any member of the royal family— and this time Maria said no.
The Duke of York remonstrated with him. He must settle Maria’s debts which had been incurred on his account; he must see that she was well provided for. It was to be an honourable settlement.
This, the Prince was ready to do.
‘If you only knew, Fred, I don’t want her to go. If only she would be reasonable.’
But his idea of reason was not Maria’s.
It was over. She would never go back to him again, she promised herself, no matter how much he insisted. She had finished with him.
She was a wealthy woman— she had no debts and there would be no occasions to incur them in future. She had her dearest Minney and she would make the care of this beloved adopted daughter her life.
‘We will manage very well without him,’ she told Miss Pigot.
And this time Miss Pigot knew that she meant it.
Caroline had a detailed account of the fête at Carlton House, all the glitter and splendour.
‘I should have been there, she said, faintly regretful, and for a moment gave herself up to contemplating what a life she might have had if the Prince of Wales had not taken such a dislike to her when he had first seen her. Wife to the Regent!
Indiscretions of the Queen Page 28