by Jean Plaidy
But the King was staring wildly before him.
‘Frederick,’ he said. ‘My son Frederick … the Hope of the House. Frederick … my son. He’s dead. Oh, yes, he’s dead … I know it. You’re deceiving me. You’ve come to break the news gradually, eh, what?’
The Prince said: ‘He is alive and well, sir. He is outside in my carriage. I guessed you would wish to see him to make sure that he had suffered no harm. I had no wish to upset Your Majesty, only to bring home the point to some people that these wicked slanders are dangerous and must stop.’
‘So he is dead,’ said the King, ‘eh, what? So you have come to tell me my son Frederick is dead.’
The Prince immediately sent an attendant down to the carriage to tell the Duke of York to come at once to the King’s apartment.
When Frederick came the King embraced him with tears in his eyes.
‘I’m here, Father,’ cried Frederick. ‘Alive and well. But I had to accept Lennox’s challenge. You wouldn’t have a coward for a son, would you?’
‘Never thought you were that, son. The Hope of the House I always said. The best of the bunch … Wish you’d been the eldest, eh? what?’
‘I’d never have cut such a fine figure as George,’ said the Duke, grinning at his brother. ‘Now Your Majesty is satisfied, eh? But there shouldn’t be this trouble in the family. I’m sure Your Majesty agrees.’
The King continued to embrace his son and the Prince watched his mother through narrowed eyes.
She was discomfited. This was a bad business. But the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York need not think that she was going to be ousted from her position because they happened to have scored this time.
The occasion of the King’s birthday ball was coming nearer. The news of the duel was common knowledge and everyone had been particularly interested in the Queen’s attitude towards Colonel Lennox who might so easily have killed her son. It was astonishing, but she had received him warmly, even affectionately, and he had not been reproached for challenging a royal duke to a duel.
The Prince of Wales who must, of course, appear at such a function did not believe that the Queen would allow the Colonel to attend the ball; and on receiving the information that the man would most certainly be there, he arrived at the ball at seven o’clock, although it was not due to start until eight, and demanded to see the Queen.
She was dressing, he was told, and was unable to receive him.
By God, he thought, am I the Prince of Wales or am I not? He pushed aside her attendants and strode into her dressing room.
She sat at her mirror and her cold gaze met his through the looking glass.
‘So … it is the Prince of Wales.’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘when I wish to speak to you I will do so. The King is still an invalid.’
‘Thanks to the anxiety cause by his sons.’
‘Perhaps his wife is not entirely blameless.’
‘What do you mean?’ the Queen demanded shrilly; and the Prince thought that this was another change in her character. In the old days she used to be calm; now she lost her temper easily. Madam is no longer in control of her feelings, he thought.
‘That is a question, Madam, that you best can answer. I have not come here to discuss it, but to tell you that Colonel Lennox should not be allowed to come to the King’s birthday ball.’
The Queen shrugged her shoulders. ‘It is too late now to cancel invitations.’
‘So you mean that you have asked this man to the King’s ball?’
‘Colonel Lennox is a member of the household.’
‘Colonel Lennox is the would-be murderer of your son.’
‘Prince of Wales, you are too dramatic.’
‘I should have thought a mother might have shown some concern at the prospect of her son’s murder.’
‘I know full well that Frederick provoked the Colonel. I have investigated the matter and have learned that it was the Duke’s own fault. He showed more eagerness to fight Colonel Lennox that the Colonel did to fight him.’
‘Madam, I have not come here to argue with you but to tell you that Colonel Lennox must not come to the ball.’
‘I could not cancel the Colonel’s invitation until I have consulted the King.’
‘I know full well who decides such matters nowadays.’
The Queen was exultant. Yes, it was she who decided now; she, who in the old days had never been allowed to give an opinion. How that had changed!
‘You are aware of the state of your father’s health. I could not disturb him with such a request. I will wait until Mr Pitt arrives. The decision can rest with him.’
The Prince said coldly: ‘I shall not expect to see at the ball tonight the man who wished to murder my brother.’
And with that he left his mother.
The King’s birthday ball! Who, a few months ago, would have thought it could have taken place; but here was the King receiving his guests, happy to be among them, looking a little strained and fatigued, it was true, and perhaps there was a wild light in his eyes and all felt wary of him – but still he was able to attend.
He received his sons with affection; and he was delighted to have his daughters with him.
He could scarcely bear his youngest daughter Amelia out of his sight and he kept her at his side. Amelia had forgotten how frightened she had been when he had embraced her so tightly and seemed as though he would hug her to death. She now talked lightheartedly to him in a manner which delighted him.
The Queen was triumphant. She had told Mr Pitt of the Prince’s demand that Colonel Lennox should not be allowed to attend the ball and she wished Mr Pitt to confirm her opinion that there was no reason at all why the Colonel should not attend. This Mr Pitt had been happy to do, and consequently the Colonel was present.
She made a point of receiving him with very special favour and during the evening was seen to kiss her fan to him. This was deliberate and calculated to annoy the Prince of Wales, which it undoubtedly did. The inevitable crisis came when the Prince was partnering his sister, the Princess Royal, in a country dance. The Prince and his sister must trip between two rows of dancers and the Prince must dance with each lady in turn and the Princess with each gentleman.
When the Prince reached Colonel Lennox and his partner he bowed low to the lady and said: ‘Madam, I crave your pardon, but this dance is over. This is not meant as an insult to you. I think you will understand.’ And with that he took the hand of his astonished sister and led her back to the Queen.
The Queen said: ‘But what has happened? Your Highness is tired?’
‘By no means,’ replied the Prince.
‘Then you find it too hot?’
‘Madam, in such company it is impossible not to find it too hot.’
‘I suppose you wish me to break up the ball.’
‘I do wish it, Madam.’
The Prince bowed and left the ballroom and the Queen had no alternative but to bring the ball to a close.
In a way, a victory for the Prince.
He went back to Carlton House, angry and dissatisfied.
He knew what he would do. He would leave all this – and go to Maria in Brighton.
There was no lack of warmth in the welcome he received at Brighton. Everywhere he went he was cheered, and the people were glad to see him back. There he could forget his troubles, for his friends rallied round him and sought to make him forget his disappointment at not having acquired the Regency and the humiliations he had suffered at the hands of his parents.
There was Maria, comforting and motherly – his Dear Love waiting to give him her devotion. There was his Marine Pavilion, always a joy, and he delighted in planning new alterations to it; there were his friends. The Sheridans were there and the Barry family ready to amuse him with the wildest pranks. The Lades came to greet him and talk of horses; he was surrounded by his old friends, the only one who was absent was Charles James Fox. He was indisposed, he wrote to the Prince, and was living quietly for
a while at Chertsey.
The King had gone to Weymouth, there to recuperate and enjoy a little sea bathing, taking with him the Queen and the three elder princesses.
Weymouth! thought the Prince with a sneer. How different from fashionable Brighton.
Brighton was wonderful. The sun seemed to shine endlessly; every morning there was old Smoker waiting to superintend the Prince’s bathing, always with a wry remark to amuse him; and then there were balls and banquets, the strolling along by the sea and the races. Always the races. He enjoyed driving out of Brighton with Maria in his carriage drawn by four grey ponies and when they reached Lewes there he would be received by the High Sheriff of the County; he gambled recklessly; he was constantly in the company of the Lades; he was seen more and more often with the reckless Barrys; he seemed determined to enjoy every minute of that summer.
‘Hellgate’, the eldest of the Barry brothers, was constantly thinking up the wildest diversions to amuse the Prince. He often behaved like a madman and liked to drive through the streets cracking his whip and lashing out at the houses as he passed; a favourite ‘joke’ of his was to ride from London to Brighton with his brothers and shout as they went ‘Murder!’ ‘Rape!’ in such high-pitched voices that they would give the impression that a female was being abducted. If anyone stopped them in order to rescue the woman they imagined was being abducted, the brothers amused themselves by thrashing the would-be rescuer. Their idea of fun almost always included physical violence in which the Prince had no wish to partake; but the wildness of the brothers amused him, and although he did not share their cruel adventures, he liked to hear of them.
Not so Maria. She wished to be gay and enjoy those summer months, but as she told the Prince, she could find no pleasure in Hellgate’s kind of fun.
Instead she had arranged that the Old Theatre in Duke Street should be used by amateur actors who believed they could do well on the stage if given a chance. Let them act their plays, she said, and London managers could come down and watch them and perhaps discover their talent. The people of Brighton would provide them with the audiences they needed. And since it was her idea that this should be done, they must, she told the Prince, support the theatre.
Often she and the Prince could be seen together in their box and the antics of the actors so delighted them, unpractised as they were, that they often laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks.
A much better way of enjoying life, commented Maria, than the sort of dangerous horseplay indulged in by Hellgate Barrymore.
That summer the refugees were arriving from France, for that country was now groaning under the onslaught of fearsome revolution.
The Prince and Mrs Fitzherbert received them warmly and the influence of French aristocracy was obvious in Brighton.
Those were happy days for Maria and she felt a determination to enjoy them to the full. She sensed change. She was thirty-four – no longer young, and she was growing fat. So was the Prince; but the six years between them seemed more marked now than they had before. Perhaps it was because he so enjoyed the company of people like the Barrys and the Lades, and those who wished to please the Prince must enjoy his pleasures. It was no use urging him to spend less recklessly; she herself had her money difficulties, for she had added her resources to his and received an income from him. This he often forgot to pay and her expenses were prodigious. This worried her, for she was the sort of woman who left to herself would have lived within her means, for the thought of owing money was abhorrent to her; and yet since she must maintain her royal style how could she do anything but fall into debt?
But for one glorious summer at Brighton she must forget such things. She must try to keep up with the pace set by her spectacular husband. She must dance, ride, laugh and be merry; and she must be there to comfort him when he needed her. Because that was what he expected of her.
She became more and more aware of the clouds … distant so far, but nevertheless showing themselves on the horizon. He was not faithful. Maria heard whispers of his amours. But he always came back to her, and although he never mentioned his infidelities she sensed his contrition. She was his Dear Love, as he constantly addressed her. She was there to receive him back into the home after his adventures. Maria must know that however many women there were in his life she would always be the first and most important of them all – his Dear Love – the woman whom he had defied the law to marry, the woman for whom he had once been ready to resign his crown.
It was her dream that she would lure him away from the friends who were of no use to him – the profligate Barry brothers, the eccentric Major Hanger, the coarse Letty Lade and her husband. Fox would have been a better friend. As for Sheridan he had become as wild as the Barrys and the Lades, following the Prince into many a foolish adventure, drinking, gambling … and she supposed amusing themselves with women.
Sometimes he would be unconscious when they brought him home. How she hated his drinking! It was humiliating to have to share in his horseplay and she avoided it whenever possible. When she heard him coming in with his friends in a merry mood after an evening’s drinking she would hide herself perhaps under a sofa or in the heavy curtains at the windows hoping that, finding the room empty, they would go away. It was no use. The Prince would cry: ‘Where is my Maria? Where is my Dear Love. Come out, Maria, if you are in hiding.’ And then they would search the room, pushing their swords and canes behind curtains, under sofas until they found her and drew her out – when with shouts of triumph they would expect her to indulge in whatever sort of maudlin fun they fancied.
There was undoubtedly change.
She was anxious, too, about his position with his family. He had always been in conflict with his father, but it was particularly disconcerting that now his mother should be his enemy. She had heard that the Queen hated her son so much that she was ready to do anything to bring about his downfall. There was a rumour that she, Maria Fitzherbert, was to be accused of praemunire for violating the Royal Marriage Act by going through a form of marriage with the Prince of Wales.
She reminded herself that she had known that if she became involved with the Prince of Wales she was going to be very vulnerable to attacks from all directions.
‘Why did I?’ she asked herself.
The answer was that she loved him.
Yes, she did. She must face the fact. Perhaps it would have been easier if she had not. Perhaps she would have been wiser in her conduct towards him. Perhaps when she heard of those infidelities she would have left him.
But how could she? She considered herself married to him; she had sworn to love, honour and obey him; and she was a woman who kept her vows.
And fundamentally – she loved him. Even sensible women did not stop loving a man who they knew was not worthy of that love.
He could charm her with his gaiety, with his gallantries, with his gracious manners, with his protestations of devotion. They were insincere, but she made herself believe them because she wanted to. She had heard a remark Sheridan had made of him which had wounded her deeply, the more so because she knew it to be true.
‘The Prince is too much every lady’s man to be the man of any lady.’
How true! she thought. How sadly true!
There was a not very characteristic recklessness about the manner in which she determined to enjoy that summer.
Debts. They were her constant thoughts.
One morning she was awakened by her maid in her house at Pall Mall to be told that two gentlemen were below and insisting on admittance.
‘Two gentlemen?’ she asked. Was it a joke of the Prince’s?
Miss Pigot came running into the room, her face long and indignant.
‘It’s the bailiffs,’ she cried. ‘They’re demanding immediate payment of this.’
‘This’ was a bill for one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five pounds.
‘Oh, Pig, how did I accumulate such a debt?’
‘I don’t know, but we’ve got to find it
unless we want these men with us for weeks.’
It was even worse than she had anticipated as she soon discovered. The debt had been long outstanding and her creditors would wait no longer. Unless she could find the required sum before the day was out she would be conveyed to the debtors’ prison.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, call the Prince. Go to Carlton House at once and tell him what plight I am in.’
He came at once. That was one of his most lovable qualities. He would always be gallant and a lady in distress would receive his immediate compassion. A lady in distress! She was his wife. And the debts incurred had been through entertaining him.
He was with her in as short a time as it took to come from Carlton House.
‘My dear, dear love, what has happened? These wretched people are bothering you.’
Prison! For his dear love! It was ridiculous.
But they would have to find the money, Maria told him.
‘Leave it to me,’ he replied, embracing her; he was always lighthearted about money. He never took it seriously. Debts? Oh, they were one of the little pinpricks in the life of royalty. One incurred them and they were settled.
Perhaps for princes, Maria reminded him. But what of people like herself?
‘No one is going to bother my dear love,’ he told her. ‘I will go with all speed to the moneylenders.’
He was back not long afterwards with the money.
Beaming with satisfaction he paid the debt and the house was free of its unwelcome visitors.
He then explained that the Jews had refused to advance him the money until some of his own outstanding commitments had been met.
‘So, my dear, what do you think I did. I’ve pledged some of the jewels and plate from Carlton House.’
‘Your jewels and plate!’
This was a situation that appealed to him, with tears in his eyes he declared that he would pledge his life for his dear love.