Perdita's Prince: (Georgian Series) (43 page)

The Colonies gone; the voices back in his head, and the future spread out before him … dark and unpredictable.

The Government had fallen. Rockingham had formed a new ministry and in it were men whom he personally disliked. The Duke of Richmond, Master General of Ordnance; Grafton, Lord Privy Seal; and the two Secretaries of State were Lord Shelburne and … most bitter blow of all … Charles James Fox. The only friend of the King’s in the cabinet was the Lord Chancellor Thurlow.

A King of England must bow to his parliament. There was plenty to remind him of that. So there was nothing he could do but take up the reins, of course, and try to forget that he was surrounded by men whom he regarded as his enemies.

*

The Prince longed to play a part in politics.

‘The time will come,’ Fox told him. ‘Wait … just wait until you take your place in the House of Lords.’

‘There is more than a year to wait,’ the Prince reminded him.

‘Nothing sir. It will soon be with us.’

‘An establishment of my own!’ sighed the Prince. ‘Freedom.’

‘Let us drink to it,’ said Fox. ‘The Prince’s Party.’

‘Whiggery and women,’ echoed the Prince. ‘How is Perdita?’

‘The answer to that question will best come from General Tarleton. He is a very great friend of the lady.’

‘It is well that she is comfortably settled.’

‘Most comfortably, I believe.’

‘A pretty creature but a dull one. And to think that I once thought her all that I desired on earth.’

‘Your Highness has found the world to be full of desirable projects.’

‘True, Charles, true … but until I am out of the cage how can I pursue them?’

‘Patience. A year or so … and all that Your Highness desires will be yours.’

‘An establishment of my own … an income worthy of my rank … a place in politics …’

Fox laughed. ‘And all you have to cultivate now is … patience.’

*

There was no sense in not enjoying life during the waiting period. He had his mistresses. Dally was pregnant and swore he was the father but everyone said it could as well have been Cholmondeley. The Prince shrugged his shoulders; the idea of being a father rather appealed to him and when the child was born she was christened Georgiana. There were several light affairs which pleased him; he dared not become deeply involved as he had been with Perdita. His visits to Mrs Armistead were growing less and less frequent. He would always remember her with gratitude and he really believed that she was one of his few mistresses with whom he could remain friends, but he needed change; he needed variety. He sighed for the surrender of his dearest Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire, but while she remained one of his best friends she declined to become his mistress.

Life was full of excitement and passing as quickly as could be hoped. Politics with Burke, Fox and Sheridan; visiting tailors with Petersham; studying the art of fencing and boxing with Angelo; going about the town by day and night – often incognito.

Those were the exciting times.

One night with several of his friends he attended a masquerade in the costume of a Spanish Grandee. Heavily disguised he always enjoyed luring people on to talk of the Prince or the King and sometimes he would reveal his identity but not at others.

On this particular occasion he saw a tall willowy girl in the costume of a nun and decided that she should be his partner. As he went to claim her a masked sailor stood in his way and told him to move off for the lady was not for him.

‘That,’ said the Prince, ‘is where you are wrong, my dear fellow.’

‘It is you who are wrong, fellow,’ was the reply. ‘Now you will leave us if you are wise.’

‘It is you who need to be wise. Come.’

The Prince seized the nun about the waist, but the sailor had pushed him aside, and put his arm about her.

‘Is that the manner in which you treat a nun?’ asked the Prince.

‘Your opinion was not asked!’ was the retort.

The nun moved closer to the sailor and this annoyed the Prince. He believed that even disguised as he was all ladies should prefer him.

‘And you, Madam,’ he said, ‘does your character fit the robes you wear as well as your charming shape does? I doubt it … I doubt it … indeed.’

‘Sir, you are insulting a lady.’

‘Sir, you are insulting me.’

The sailor let out a burst of laughter, which angered the Prince.

‘Where did you find her?’ asked the Prince. ‘On Portsmouth Point?’ As this was the notorious spot where prostitutes waited for the sailors the lady uttered a shrill protest and several other sailors came up to ask who this fellow was who was daring to insult the navy and their ladies.

One of the sailors moved menacingly towards the Prince, his attendants immediately closed round him, but the sailor escort of the nun came forward and struck the Prince in the chest. The Prince, well versed in fisticuffs by Angelo’s expert tuition, immediately retaliated and a crowd gathered to see the fight.

There was a general uproar and constables were called. Everyone began talking at once and the ringleaders – the Spanish Grandee and the sailor – were seized and marched off to the watch house, much to the consternation of the Prince’s attending squires.

But the Prince was in fact enjoying the adventure.

In the watch house he and the sailor were ordered to take off their masks.

The Prince did so with a flourish and the gasp of dismay which followed delighted him. It was the turn of the sailor; and there standing before the Prince was his brother William.

They stared at each other and burst out laughing.

‘So, William, it is you!’ cried the Prince.

‘So, George, it is you!’ echoed William.

They fell into each other’s arms and embraced and laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks while the constables looked on, not knowing what to do.

‘You young rip,’ cried the Prince, ‘what were you doing at a masquerade?’

‘Exactly the same as you were.’

‘And what were your intentions regarding that nun?’

‘The same as yours, brother.’

This seemed so funny to the brothers that they could not stop laughing; and when the Prince’s attendants arrived breathless and anxious at the watch house, the Prince cried out that he wished all the people concerned in this adventure to receive a guinea apiece to compensate them for their trouble.

The brothers went off arm-in-arm; but of course it was impossible to keep such an adventure secret; and since the King had commanded that nothing regarding the Prince’s conduct should be held back from him, he eventually had an account of it.

He talked to the Queen about it. What was the world coming to? America lost; and the Prince appearing in brawls with his young brother. If the others went the way of the Prince of Wales, he did not know what would become of them all.

‘I have not slept for ten nights, thinking of them. Not ten nights. You understand that, eh, what?’

The Queen nodded sadly. She understood too well.

*

There was no end to trouble, it seemed to the King that year.

Just as he had become resigned to the new ministry, Rockingham died and it was necessary to appoint a new Prime Minister. Fox – recognized to be the ablest man in the Government – naturally expected to be appointed. But the King would not have
it and sent for Lord Shelburne. Those Whig supporters of Fox known as the Foxhounds showed their indignation by resigning, Fox at their head, and Burke and Sheridan – who had a minor post in the Government – among them. Fox, however, still held control over a considerable number of votes in the House of Commons and was in the strong position of holding the balance between North’s opposition and the Government. The King knew that this wily enemy would not rest until he had ousted Shelburne from his place.

The wrangling went on as to how the ignoble peace with America should be settled; and that August a great family tragedy occurred. Little Alfred, who had been ailing since birth, died.

The King was desolate; so was the Queen; and the fact that little Octavius was so delicate added to their anxieties.

*

The Prince followed these political events with the utmost interest. And all during the trying times when the King was in conflict with Fox, the Prince was seen with him in public places – arm-in-arm with Fox, gambling with Fox, drinking with Fox.

As soon as he was of age he would openly side with Fox – and that meant, of course, against his father.

And so the King grew more and more melancholy; and the Queen wondered where it would all end; and she often said that she wished the Prince would come and talk to her as any son might be expected to visit his mother.

And the months of his minority were passing; and at last it was the year 1783 when, in August, he would be twenty-one.

Carlton House

‘
I HAVE NOT
slept for ten nights,’ said the King. ‘Ten nights. Twenty nights. Thirty nights. I doubt I shall ever sleep peacefully again. I wish I were eighty, or ninety, or dead.’

The Queen tried to comfort him. It was alarming when he talked in this way. But he had never allowed her to share his burdens so how could she do so now? She could only talk to him about the family – and God knew that was a depressing enough subject. Little Alfred gone; Octavius ailing; the Princes indulging in brawls … and the approaching majority of the Prince of Wales.

‘Thirty-nine thousand pounds owing to tradesmen!’ wailed the King. ‘And a good proportion of it for wine … When I think of the way I ordered their diet … Why did my son become a drunkard?’

‘It is because he is young.’

The King ignored her. ‘I was young, Madam. But I was never a drunkard. Tailors, trivialities, jewellers … Wine and women … He thinks of nothing else. Can you make excuses for that, Madam, eh, what?’

The Queen looked sad. It was no use blaming her for the Prince’s wildness.

‘It is his companions, I doubt not.’

His companions! The King nodded. Fox – that man who haunted his dreams, who mocked him in his secret thoughts, the nephew of Sarah Lennox, the man with Stuart blood in his veins, who was a distant connection of his from the gay feckless charming side of the family. And the Prince had chosen this man for his companion. No, it was Fox who had chosen the Prince. The King knew why. To turn him against his father; to make a rake of him, a drunkard, a womanizer, a politician in direct opposition to his own father. And Sheridan was another as bad as Fox. The King could imagine their witty conversation, the barbs which would Le directed against the Palace of Piety. Oh he knew what they called his Court; he knew how they jeered at him and the Queen. And the Prince with them!

It was intolerable. But what did he do when he wanted to buy his indiscreet letters from a play actress? Come to his father! What did he do when he wanted an allowance, his own establishment? Come to the King!

He was asking for £100 000 a year – and Fox would try to help him get it.

‘He’ll not have it,’ said the King, his eyes protruding.

‘What’s that?’ asked the Queen fearfully.

‘One hundred thousand pounds a year he wants. To spend on wine and women.’

The Queen looked shocked.

‘He’ll not get it. He’ll not get it. You understand me, eh, what?’

The Queen nodded sadly and the King was a little mollified. At least she caused him no anxiety.

He almost confided his worries to her over the Government. He had felt stricken since North had formed a coalition with Fox. The idea of his trusted ‘good Lord North’ going over to the enemy. A coalition with Fox! He had thought North loathed the man as he did. But North for all his good qualities was a weak man. But to side with that man whom he knew the King hated, whom he knew was working with the Prince!

He felt so angry about this sometimes that he told himself it would be better if he abdicated and let his son rule in his place. Then ‘they’ would see what would happen to the country.

‘A strange thing,’ said the King sadly, ‘when a man’s son is against him, eh, what?’

‘It is not that he is against Your Majesty. He is in the hands of bad companions …’

She trailed off ineffectively. How could she comfort him? And when she saw him lashing himself into a state of anger her one thought was to do so.

‘An establishment, he wants. He wants his own house. You know what that means, don’t you, eh, what? It means that he’ll set up in rivalry to St James’s. There’ll be two Courts before we know where we are! People are already likening this to the quarrel between my father and grandfather. They are saying it’s a royal custom for fathers and sons to quarrel.’

‘I suppose there are little upsets in all families.’

‘This is the royal family. This is politics. Something of which you know nothing.’

No, thought the Queen, and whose fault is that? I wanted to know. I wanted to help you, but I have been kept in the background. I have been allowed to hold no position but be the mother of your children.

She was resentful, and yet in a way sorry for him. She did not love him. How could she when he had never taken her into his confidence, when she had always known he had married her under sufferance. Her compensation in life had come through her children, not through him.

But she was alarmed when she saw him working himself into a state of tension because she was terrified that one day he would lose his reason.

The King said: ‘He wants his own establishment. Buckingham House is not good enough for him. I have decided he shall have Carlton House.’

‘Carlton House! But no one has lived in it since your mother died. It’s almost a ruin.’

‘It’s good enough for my lord Prince,’ said the King vindictively.

*

Carlton House. A house of his own.

The Prince could not wait to take possession.

He went in with a group of friends; they ran up the staircases and in and out of the rooms. Cobwebs clung to the Prince’s fine velvet coat, and rats hurried out of the way. Beetles scuttled across the floor. There were patches of damp on the walls and the banging of a door brought down a ceiling.

The Prince stood in the garden among the battered statues and folded his arms.