He did not look in the least like a frustrated bridegroom. Indeed he was secretly pleased at the way everything had turned out. He had not wanted marriage so much as to bring home to his parents that he would no longer endure their neglect. After all, what had a young man of twenty-one, who was after all Prince of Wales, to fear from his parents?

Riding from Whitechapel he had seen a little of the city, and dark as it was, it had excited him. As he rode he was telling himself, ‘One day I shall rule this land. What have I to fear?’

The coach had drawn up and Colonel Lorne was saying: ‘This is the Friary, Your Highness. I shall now conduct you to the Queen’s backstairs and you can present yourself to her without delay.’

To his mother, he noticed, not to his father. It was true, he supposed, that his mother was the important member of the family.

Colonel Lorne preceded him up the stairs and scratched on a door which was opened by a middle-aged woman whose appearance was charming if not striking.

‘Mrs Howard, the Queen should be informed without delay that the Prince of Wales is here.’

Mrs Howard looked startled; then she saw the Prince and swept him a deep curtsey which Frederick acknowledged with a gracious bow.

Mrs Howard disappeared and came back in a few seconds.

‘If Your Highness will come this way ...’

He followed her into the apartment and there waiting for him was his mother.

For some seconds they looked at each other, neither speaking. It was after all an important moment in their lives. This was the mother who had said such a tearful farewell to him fourteen years ago and had fought so desperately to have him brought to England for a few years—and then appeared to have become resigned to his absence and after that indifferent. This was the son whom she had lost so long ago that she had forgotten him and now saw only as an impostor come to take what she would prefer her darling William to have.

The emotion they felt was smothered in a resentment on both sides.

‘Welcome home, Frederick,’ said Caroline, extending her hand.

‘Thank you ... Mother.’ Frederick took it and kissed it.

There was nothing she could think of to say to him. She felt cold; it was scarcely possible to believe that this was the child she had borne and cherished with such love and devotion. There was no sign of her little Fritzchen in this young man. He was elegant, she noticed; he had gracious manners; and he was very like his father—at least what George Augustus had been at his age. There were the same full pouting lips, the blue eyes that were too prominent, the neat figure, shapely but too small for manliness. She wondered if he was as conscious of his low stature as his father was of his. She hoped not, for that awareness had helped to make George the difficult man he was.

‘You have had a good journey?’

‘Well, scarcely that, Madam. The crossing was bad. I thought we should all be drowned.’

‘It is bad at this time of year.’

She noticed that he spoke English better than she or the King did. His English tutors had done their work well. That would help him to popularity with the people here. He must not, of course, be too popular.

‘You vill vish to meet your brothers and sisters. And the King vill vish to know that you are here. I vill have him told.’

She gave the order to one of her women.

A strange welcome after all those years! thought Frederick. His mother did not altogether surprise him, for he had heard a great deal about her. She was a tall, buxom woman who was still not without beauty and only slightly marked by smallpox. Her hands were beautiful and neck and shoulders magnificent. She was stately and had an air of queenliness. He wished that she had shown more pleasure in his arrival.

But he was determined to enjoy life in England. He was after all Prince of Wales; there would be many to remember that and it was certain to be more exciting here than it had been in Hanover.

The King came into the apartment. Frederick was looking at what could well be himself in twenty or thirty years time.

The blue eyes were less clear, the complexion more ruddy, but there was the Hanoverian jaw, the Hanoverian eyes.

The King noticed that his son was of his own height and was gratified; he disliked men to be taller than he was and he was continually being annoyed to find they were.

Apart from that he was irritated. He did not want his son here—sons meant trouble. He seemed eager to please though. All the more reason to be watchful, he warned himself.

‘So you’ve come home,’ he said gruffly.

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘We had to stop that Berlin nonsense.’

The Prince flushed. ‘I felt I was of a marriageable age, sir.’

The King turned away and said to the Queen: ‘So he’s come home then.’

The Queen smiled as though he had said something very wise.

‘As Your Majesty says, the people vill be interested to see him.’

‘And I to see them ... and this country. I have often thought of it.’

‘You speak good English,’ said the Queen.

The King scowled. Although he was unaware how bad his own accent was he knew that the Prince’s was superior.

‘Not like a German at all,’ went on the Queen with a smile.

‘It is not a bad thing to be a German,’ said the King. ‘It is a good thing,’ answered the Queen quickly.

‘It is von very good thing.’

The Prince was bewildered, reading something beneath the surface of the conversation. It seemed as though the Queen were very much in awe of his father, which was contrary to the reports he had heard. He had expected to find her in command. Perhaps the rumours which had come to Hanover were not true. His mother seemed afraid of his father; and his father was a testy little man who was not going to pretend he was glad to see his firstborn.

A strange homecoming!

Frederick was glad when the rest of the family arrived in his mother’s apartments to meet him.

It was rather exciting suddenly to find oneself a member of a large family,

They were presented to him in order of age. Anne first, haughty, not very attractive, being short like her father and plump like her mother. She looked with disdain at this new brother when she was presented as though she would have preferred him to stay in Hanover.

‘I remember you well,’ he told her pleasantly.

‘I don’t remember you.’

‘You were after all two years younger.’

She resented that; if he had not been born, if she had had no brothers, she would have been the heir to the throne. A second Queen Anne! She could never forget it; it rankled and festered because what she longed to be more than anything was a queen. And this young man—as well as spoilt William—stood in her way.

‘Well, you’re here now. I was in the middle of a singing lesson when I was summoned.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Mr Handel is my professor. I believe him to be possessed of genius.’

‘That must be very pleasant.’

She looked at him scornfully, but Amelia was now waiting to be presented.

Amelia was decidedly prettier than Anne and more pleasant. She whispered to her brother that she had been very interested in his plans to marry their cousin, particularly as, he knew, she might well be betrothed to Wilhelmina’s brother. Poor Amelia! he thought. How would she fare at the Court of Prussia? Would the madman of a king dare to treat her as he treated poor Wilhelmina and Fritz?

‘I should not care too much that the marriage is delayed,’ he told her. ‘One day I will have a great deal to tell you of the Court of Berlin.’

Then there was Caroline—delicate and gentle, eager to make up by her welcome for the lack of warmth in that of the others. He thought Caroline might be his favourite sister.

The other little girls were too young to impress him much; but they seemed pretty little creatures. His only brother, William, Duke of Cumberland, took an immediate dislike to him, and he to William.

‘So you’re our German brother,’ said the arrogant boy.

‘I’m as English as you are,’ Frederick reminded him.

‘What! You have lived all your life in Germany. I have never been there.’

‘It is an omission you will probably rectify when you are old enough.’

Frederick turned away from the boy and spoke to Caroline.

He was thinking what a strange homecoming this was. This gentle girl seemed the only member of the family who was glad he had come.


* * *

The King and Queen decided that the Prince of Wales should slip quietly into his place at Court. There should be no fanfares of welcome, no fêtes to celebrate his arrival.

George somewhat grudgingly admitted him to the Privy Council where he was formally created Prince of Wales. It disturbed him to see that his son was an immediate success. His youth, his good manners, and his ability to speak the language with scarcely a trace of German accent was applauded. It was his own family who behaved ungraciously to him.

The two chief offenders were Anne and William. Anne was his enemy from the first largely because she resented his sex and his being her senior. The older she grew the more fearful she was of not finding a suitable husband and nothing less than a prince would satisfy her; if she could become a queen she would be slightly reconciled to being excluded from the Crown of England. Therefore the return of this elder brother was particularly galling to her. William sulkily showed his resentment. He had been treated as the only son; all the privileges which came to the male of the family had been his; and now to have a brother thrust upon him and an elder brother, was insupportable. He made no effort to hide his resentment.