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sick old man and his position alone made him remote

But when the baby came it would be different She and the child would be

together.

Would they? She had heard the women talking. They had all said that royal

children saw little of their parents. Their education was taken care of by their

governors.
Nonsense!
she had told herself.
I would never allow it. I would fight
for this as for nothing else.

And she would win. She was sure of it. There was one thing she had

discovered about that precious husband of hers. He hated scenes— unless he

could play the injured party, unless he could be the one who wept and suffered.

He certainly did not want to partake in scenes with her. He only wanted to avoid

her.

She had put this to use when she had shouted at him. ‘Have your mistress by

all means! But keep her out of my sight!’ He had looked as though he were going

to faint with horror and had waved a perfumed kerchief before his nose as though

to revive him or remove the odours of her person. But it had worked. Lady Jersey

was less in attendance.

One of these days I shall insist that she leaves me altogether,
Caroline told herself. But why brood on Lady Jersey when this cherished being was already

announcing, in an unmistakable manner, his— or her— intention to come into the

world.

A baby, she thought ecstatically. A baby of my very own!

————————

The Prince of Wales paced up and down the chamber. Assembled there were

the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King’s chief ministers of Church and State

waiting for the birth of an heir to the throne.

Caroline’s labour had been long and she was exhausted; the Prince was in

terror that the child would not be healthy or would be born dead

There must be a child.
He kept murmuring to himself:
There must be. I could
never—

The suspense was unendurable.

At last they heard the cry of a child. The Prince hurried into the lying-

chamber.

‘A girl, Your Highness. A lovely healthy little girl.’ There was no doubt of

her health. She was bawling lustily.

Caroline lying in the bed, completely exhausted, cried out: ‘My baby. Where

is my baby?’

They laid the little girl in her arms.

‘Mine God,’ she said, ‘it’s true then. I have a baby.’

‘A little girl, Your Highness.’

‘Mine God, how happy I am!’

The Prince was happy too. A boy would have been better, of course but there

was no Salic law in England and the succession was secure.

He embraced the Archbishop; he shook hands with all who came near him. He

was a father. He had done his duty.

I shall never be obliged to share a bed with that woman again,
he thought.

THE Prince could not hide his relief.

He explained to his friend and Master of his Household Lord Cholmondeley:

‘I was terrified that something would go wrong. I cannot tell you, my dear friend, what the birth of this child means to me. If you could know all that I have

suffered.’

Tears filled his eyes at the thought of his suffering, then he shuddered

thinking of his wife. She seemed to him gross and vulgar and because she was so

different from all that he admired in women she reminded him of the most perfect

of them all: his dear Maria.

Oh, to be with Maria again, to be settled and happy; to return to her, often a

little intoxicated as he used to be in the old days, to be aware of her concern, to listen to her tender scolding. Oh, Maria, goddess among women, why had she

allowed him to marry this creature!

He turned to Cholmondeley: ‘If you could understand—’

Cholmondeley assured his master that he did understand; and he realized

therefore that the birth of this child relieved him of a hateful burden.

‘I shall be grateful to this daughter of mine until the end of my days,’ said the Prince. ‘Pray God I never have to touch the woman again.’

‘There should be no necessity, Your Highness. The child is healthy.’

‘May she remain so. I have no intention of following my mother’s example

and producing fifteen of them. Fifteen! It’s a joke. What a pity my parents were

not more moderate. hey would have saved themselves a good deal of trouble.’

Cholmondeley could scarcely answer that without being guilty of
les majesté
so he remained silent.

The Prince was not expecting answers. He was in one of his lachrymose

moods, full of self-pity; in a short while he would be talking of Maria Fitzherbert.

Cholmondeley believed that Lady Jersey must be a very clever woman— a witch

perhaps— to be able to ding to her position as she did considering the Prince’s

obsession with Maria Fitzherbert.

But the Prince was not looking healthy. His face— usually highly coloured—

had a tinge of purple in it. A bad sign, Cholmondeley had noticed before. Well, it had been an emotional time; perhaps another bleeding was necessary.

‘Your Highness is exhausted. It has been such a trying time. Do you not think

you should rest a little?’

‘I feel tired,’ admitted the Prince. ‘Bring me some brandy.’

Cholmondeley went to do the Prince’s bidding and when he, returned he

found the Prince slumped in his chair. As he appeared to be suffering from one of those fits to which he was accustomed, Cholmondeley sent for the physicians.

The Prince, they said, was indeed ill, and bleeding was immediately necessary

as it was the only effective way of baling with these unaccountable turns of his

So the Prince lay on his bed, pale from much blood letting; and rarely had he

seemed so wan and feeble.

The news spread through the Court:
The Prince is seriously ill.

————————

He felt so feeble; he had no strength left. He had never felt quite so ill before in the whole of his life.

He asked that a mirror be brought and when he saw his face lying on the

pillows, so white and drawn, so unlike his usual florid complexion, he was sure he was dying.

‘Leave me alone,’ he said. ‘I want to think.’

And when they had left him he lay thinking of the past— thinking of Maria.

That first meeting along the river bank and he had known that she was the only

woman who was going to be of importance in his life. He had always known it.

Why had he allowed himself to be led astray?

Maria had refused him countless times. Good religious Maria, who believed

in the sanctity of marriage and could only come to him through marriage. How

right she was! And at last the ceremony in that house in Park Street— and the

happy years.

He should have stayed with Maria. He should never have allowed himself to

be seduced from her side. Only with Maria lay happiness. And he had broken her

heart.

But all the world should know now in what light he regarded her. He was

dying and he was going to tell the world.

He called for paper.

‘I am going to make a will,’ he told Cholmondeley, and seeing the expression

on his friend’s face he went on: ‘There is no point in hiding the truth. There may well be little time left to me. Do as I say.’

The paper was brought.

‘This is my last Will and Testament,’ he wrote. And the date: ‘The tenth day

of January in the year of our Lord 1796.’

He wrote that he left all his worldly goods to ‘my Maria Fitzherbert, my wife,

the wife of my heart and soul,’ who although she could not call herself publicly

his wife was so in the eyes of Heaven and his. She was his real and true wife and dearer to him than the life which was slowly ebbing away.

Everything— everything was for Maria. Miss Pigot was not forgotten. He had

already settled five hundred pounds a year on her for the rest of his life and it was his dying wish that on his death his family should provide a post for her perhaps as a housekeeper in one of the royal palaces.

He wished to be buried without pomp; and a picture of Maria was to be buried

with him; it should be attached to a ribbon and hung about his neck; and when

Maria died, he wished that her coffin be placed beside his and the inner sides of both coffins removed and the coffins soldered together in the manner employed in

the burial of George II and his Queen Caroline.

He finished with a loving goodbye to his Maria, his wife, his life, his soul.

Then he felt better. She would know that he had sincerely cared for her. Their

parting was a piece of folly which they should never have allowed to happen. He

could never be happy in life without her; and he wanted her to know this as she

would when his will was read after his death.

But he did not die.

In a few days’ time he had recovered from the excessive bleeding and the

fond colour was back in his cheeks.

————————

Caroline was happy. She had her baby and nothing else mattered. But there

was inevitably one fear which haunted her; what if they should take the baby from her? The Prince showed little interest in the child; her only importance to him was that she made it unnecessary for him to live with her mother.

‘What do I care for him!’ said Caroline. ‘If I can keep my baby, I care for no

one.’

Lady Jersey had hinted that the child would not be left under her control.

‘Let them try to take her away from me, cried Caroline clutching the child to

her breast. This made Lady Jersey smile her haughty condescending smile, and

Caroline felt she hated that woman almost as fiercely as she loved her child.

The christening took place at St. James’s, with the King, the Queen and the

Duchess of Brunswick (represented by the Princess Royal) as sponsors. The

Archbishop christened the little girl Charlotte Augusta.

‘Charlotte,’ laughed Caroline to Mrs. Harcourt, ‘after dear Grandmamma, the

Queen of England, and Augusta after my own mother. I hope my little girl will

resemble neither of them.’

Harcourt shrugged her shoulders. She was in duty-bound to report this to

Lady Jersey who in her turn would report it to Her Majesty and Caroline would

have advanced a little farther in the ill-favour of the Queen.

Yet, thought Mrs. Harcourt, Lady Jersey was perhaps not firmly established in

the good graces of the Prince. True, he was fascinated by the woman, but she had

heard that he repeatedly spoke— and with great longing— of Mrs. Fitzherbert and

now that that lady’s friends had persuaded her to take a house in Town and enter

Society, who knew what would happen? It was beginning to be said that if one

would please the Prince, one should invite Maria Fitzherbert. An old and familiar pattern which must make Lady Jersey uneasy, though she gave no sign of it and

seemed as confident as ever of her sway over the Prince.

The Princess Charlotte could one day be the Sovereign and therefore great

ceremonies should attend her birth, but the Prince was smarting under

Parliament’s methods of dealing with his debts and refused to receive the loyal

ceremonies planned by the City of London.

‘I am too poor,’ he announced, ‘to receive these loyal addresses in a manner

fitting to my rank. Therefore I would ask that the speeches ‘be written and

presented to me.’

The Aldermen of the City were incensed. The Prince might have his dignity

but theirs was as great. They could not depart from their old customs to please an impecunious prince. Therefore the ceremonies would not take place.

The City was indeed offended. The matter was discussed in the streets and the

coffee houses.

‘Can’t afford it! You know what this means? He knows that she will have to

receive the congratulations with him and he can’t bear to stand beside her while

she does so. He hates her. And why? Because he knows she’s not his true wife,

that’s why. He’s married to Maria Fitzherbert and he can’t abide this one.’

Why not? She was affable. She was German, it was true, but he was half

German himself in any case.

The Prince of Wales was more unpopular with the City of London than he had

ever been before. He was unhappy about this. He loathed the silences that greeted his carriage when he rode in the streets, and he thought longingly of those days of his youth when he was Prince Charming and everything he did was right. Then

they loved him and hated his father; but since the King’s bout of madness that had changed. Not that the King was so popular. Royalty was not beloved in this

changing world. There was the grim example from across the Channel always to