The Prince and the Quakeress: (Georgian Series) (5 page)

He was taken to Leicester House and there Augusta called in the doctors. The Prince was suffering from the abscess, they said; and he had a touch of pleurisy; they expected he would recover shortly.

Frederick seemed contented to have Augusta beside him, but he whispered to her that he was uneasy about George.

‘George!’ cried Augusta. ‘He is well.’

‘He is young,’ replied Frederick, ‘and my father is an old man.’

Augusta cried out: ‘Do not speak so. It will be many years before George comes to the throne.’

But Frederick was obsessed by a premonition that it would not be long.

He said: ‘I have a paper for George. It is in my desk. I wish you to give it to him if I should be unable to do so myself.’

‘But of course you will give it to him.’

But Frederick shook his head. ‘You have been a good wife to me,’ he said. ‘Bute will advise you.’

He saw the tender smile touch her lips and he was pleased. He had not been faithful to her. Let her find some consolation if she could. It had occurred to him lately that there was a great deal in Augusta which neither he nor others appreciated. Perhaps Bute did. She was not the gullible fool many believed her to be.

‘The paper for George is in my desk,’ he said, and even as he spoke a spasm of pain crossed his face.

‘Augusta,’ he said, ‘send for Desnoyer… I’d like him to
play a little for me. He has a way with a violin which pleases me.’

Augusta sent for the children’s music master and when the man came Frederick smiled at him and bade him play.

In the Prince’s bedchamber the candles guttered; the Prince lay back on his pillows, his face drawn and yellow; Augusta watched, telling herself he would soon recover. It is a good sign that he asked for the music. In the shadows the doctors waited: Wilmot, Taylor and Leigh, with Hawkins the surgeon – some of the best medical men in the country.

He’ll soon be well, thought Augusta, soon taking ‘little walks in the alleys’ with Lady Middlesex while she herself enjoyed one of those stimulating and most delightful sessions with Lord Bute.

The Prince began to cough; the violin stopped; the doctors were at the bedside.

Frederick put his hands on his heart and said: ‘I feel death close.’

Augusta rose in her chair and snatched up a candle.

‘My God,’ cried Wilmot, ‘the Prince is going.’

As Augusta held the candle high and looked at her husband, she saw the glazed look in his eyes as he sank back on the pillows.

He lay still; she stood staring aghast, and it was some time before the numbing realization came to her that she was a widow.

*

There was gloom in Leicester House. Everyone was shocked. Frederick was only forty-four years of age. His father was still alive and looked as if he were good for a few more years. And Frederick was dead. His eldest son was but a boy – thirteen years old. Who would have believed this possible, seeing Frederick on the tennis court, acting in plays, fishing with his children, sporting with his mistresses. It was incredible.

The Princess Augusta remained stunned. She would not move from her husband’s bedside. She sat in her chair there and no persuasion could move her. It was as though she believed that by remaining there she could by the very force of her desire to bring him back breathe some life into him.

‘Frederick…’ she murmured, from time to time. ‘It can’t be
. . . You must be here. What will become of us… of George, the children… of me?’

In the background of her mind was that grim shadow, that old ogre, the King. Who would protect her from him now? What would he decide to do? What if he determined to take the care of the children out of her hands! This was like a nightmare.

She covered her face with her hands, hoping that when she uncovered it she would see Fred lying there in bed smiling at her, telling her she had had a bad dream.

But there he was, still, unlike himself. Oh, the horror of looking at the dead face of a loved one! The terrible realization that he will never speak again, that he has gone out of this life for ever!

‘No, Fred…
no
!’

She felt the child move within her… Fred’s child. In four months time that child would be born. Only five months before this man had begotten the child and now he was dead!

And the future? It was dark and menacing.

A hand lightly touched her shoulder. She turned sharply. Lord Bute was looking down at her, tenderly, lovingly.

‘Your Highness will make yourself ill,’ he said.

She shook her head and placed her hand rapidly over the one which lay on her shoulder. Hastily she removed it. One must be careful. The very thought of the need for care started to lift her out of her misery. John was here, dear John Stuart, Earl of Bute.

She rose and with him left the death-chamber.

*

George walked up and down trying to fight back his tears. It was easier walking, he found; if he threw himself on to his bed he would break into wild sobbing; and he must remember that to give way to his grief would be childish.

Dear kind Papa was gone! He could not realize it. He had known Papa was ill; he had been present when the tennis ball had hit him and that had started the tragic business. But to die… never to see him again! It was more than he could bear. This was the first real sorrow. His father had died in pain, and he could not bear the thought of people in pain. When two workmen had fallen from the scaffolding at Kew he had been
overcome with horror and had been affected for days. But this was his own dear Papa.

What would become of him, what would become of them all?

His grief was overpowering; there was nothing but his grief.

Then it was invaded suddenly by another emotion – one of stark terror.

Now that his father was dead he, George William Frederick, was Prince of Wales.

*

The King came to Leicester House, setting aside enmity at such a time.

The children were summoned to his presence and he stared at them all, but chiefly at George. He was a terrifying old man – little, it was true, but with a red face and prominent blue eyes, and he spoke in broken English.

‘Vere is the Prince of Vales?’

And George must stand before him for scrutiny. ‘Don’t be a frightened young puppy. Prince of Vales now… How old are you, eh? Thirteen… Remember now you are the Prince of Vales.’

But there were tears in his eyes, for he was a sentimental old man for all his high temper; he saw that Augusta was genuinely grieved and tried to comfort her. The woman was a fool. Caroline had said so… his own dear wife, Caroline (and there was no woman fit to unbuckle her shoes) had said so. But fool as she was, she had been fond of Fred and any woman who could have been fond of that villain (mustn’t speak ill of the dead) of that…
puppy,
must be a meek woman. She’d need help in looking after the children and he’d see she got it. By God, she should do as she was ordered in that respect. But in the meantime she was a woman grieving for her husband and he knew what it meant to lose a spouse.

‘Do not cry, my dear,’ he said. ‘Try not to grieve. I know how you suffer. I lost my own vife. Your mother-in-law… the best voman in the vorld. Ven I lose her I lose heart…’

Augusta thought: Yes, you old hypocrite, and all the time you were mourning for her you were thinking of how you could bring Madame Walmoden to England, and all the time you were pretending to be so fond of her you were deceiving
her with other women. As Fred was… but Fred was kinder… and Fred was dead.

The King patted her knee comfortingly, and beckoned to his grandsons.

‘Come here, young fellows. Be brave boys now. Obey your mother and remember you are the grandsons of a King.’

Augusta said quickly: ‘Your Majesty will, I know, out of your goodness of heart not take my children from me. I have lost my husband… to lose my children would be unendurable.’

She was on the verge of tears and the King’s eyes were swimming too. Augusta was alert in spite of her grief. Now was the time to get this important matter settled, she was well aware, while he was in a sentimental mood. Once he had gone away and remembered that, Fred was a villain whom he had hated, that she had always been her husband’s ardent supporter, he would set some plan in motion to take her children from her. Now was the moment then, while he was in a sentimental mood and could not in all decency deny such a request to a grieving widow.

‘Your Majesty, who understands my loss as few others can, will grant me this. Your Majesty, you will leave me guardian of my children. It is the only thing which can console me now.’

The King nodded.

‘So it shall be,’ he said.

Augusta sighed with relief and was aware of triumph. Fred was dead, no longer there to overshadow her. Now was the time for the true Augusta to emerge.

*

Augusta sent for her eldest son. She was seated at her table and there were papers before her; when she saw George she rose and held out her arms.

He ran into them and she embraced him crying: ‘My poor fatherless boy.’

George wept with her and as he did so thought of his father lying dead in his coffin and the pain he must have suffered before his death. He wept bitterly for the loss of that kind man and the fact that his passing had made him Prince of Wales. There was a difference in being Prince of Wales and the son of the Prince of Wales. He had sensed it immediately. He was
expecting a summons hourly to appear before his terrifying grandfather.

Augusta dried her tears. She had lost dear Fred, but there were compensations. There was power and there was Lord Bute.

‘Your dear kind Papa left a paper which he would have given to you on your eighteenth birthday had he lived. But now that he has… gone… he would wish you to have it at once, for, my son, you will have to grow up quickly. You will have to learn to be a King. You understand full well what your father’s death means to you… what changes it has brought in your position.’

‘Yes, Mamma,’ said George mournfully.

‘Then we will read this paper together, shall we? We will see what instructions dear kind Papa has left you.’

‘Yes, Mamma.’

She opened the papers and spread them on the table, and together they read:

‘Instructions for my son George drawn up by myself for his good, that of my family and for that of his people, according to the ideas of my grandfather and best friend, George I.’

Augusta looked at her son significantly. ‘You see, he did not trust his father, our present King,
your
grandfather. Ah, his grandfather was always a good friend to him. How different it would have been if he had been his father…’

‘It was a pity they had to quarrel,’ George said.

‘Anyone would quarrel with the King,’ replied Augusta fiercely. ‘We shall have to be very careful to avoid trouble now we no longer have your dear Papa to care for us.’

George read what his father had written:

‘As always I have had the tenderest paternal affection for you, and I cannot give you stronger proof of it than in leaving this paper in your mother’s hands, who will read it to you from time to time and will give it to you when you come of age or when you get the crown. I know you will always have the greatest respect for your mother… .’

‘I hope it too,’ said Augusta. He took her hand and kissed it.

‘You know it, Mamma.’

‘Bless you, my son.’ She glanced down at the paper with him. ‘Your father was always a man of peace,’ she said. ‘It was only when the need arose that he would take to arms. He was very different from his younger brother, the Butcher Cumberland.’

‘If you can be without war let not your ambition draw you into it. A good deal of the National Debt must be paid off before England enters into a war. At the same time never give up your honour nor that of the nation. A wise and brave Prince may oftentimes without armies put a stop to the confusion, which ambitious neighbours endeavour to create.’

Reading these instructions George began to have a deep sense of responsibility. Before he had always believed that there was plenty of time for him to learn. He had never before seriously thought of being King of England. It was something for the very distant future. His father had been a comparatively young man with at least twenty years to live, and twenty years in the opinion of a thirteen-year-old boy was a lifetime. And now here he was with an ageing grandfather, given to choleric rages, who could die at any moment – the only barrier between young George and the throne. It was an alarming prospect.

He must learn all he could as quickly as possible. He must study these papers. He read feverishly; he must balance the country’s finances; he must understand business; he must seek true friends who would not flatter him but tell him the truth. He must separate the thrones of Hanover and England and never attempt to sacrifice the latter for the former as both his grandfather and his great-grandfather had done. Uppermost in his mind must be the desire to convince Englishmen that he was an Englishman himself, born in England, bred in England, and an Englishman not only through these matters but by inclination. Never let the people of England believe for a moment that he saw himself as a German whose loyalties were first for Germany.

Frederick finished his injunctions by recommending his mother to his care and also the rest of the family, his brothers and sisters.

‘I shall have no regret never to have worn the crown if you do but fill it worthily,’ he ended.

George lifted eyes swimming with tears to his mother’s face.

‘But, Mamma, it is almost as though he
knew
he were going to die.’

‘Sometimes these revelations come to us,’ she answered. ‘You see how he loved you, how he loved us all. You will want to do all that he wished, I know.’

‘Yes, Mamma,’ answered George fervently.

‘He would have wanted me to guide you, my son, for he had more faith in me than in anyone.’

‘I know it, Mamma. I feel so young, so…so unworthy.’

‘Trust in me, my son. Rely on me and all will be well.’

‘It is what I want to do above all else.’

She kissed him warmly; he was hers to mould; and he was the future King.