To please the Prince he suggested they should write a play together, and this delighted Frederick. Of course, thought Hervey, I shall do all the work; but it was worth it to have people saying that he and the Prince were becoming inseparable.

The play was difficult to write for he had never tried his hand at playwriting before. It required a more sustained effort than the writing of verses or the notes he was accustomed to make in his journal. He had his doubts as to the virtue of the play, but Frederick was enthusiastic about it. Poor Fred! He had no literary taste!

When the play was finished Frederick insisted on sending it to Wilks, the actor-manager at Drury Lane.

‘He must put it on the stage,’ cried Frederick. ‘No one shall know who wrote it. The King and the Queen will come and admire it and then and only then shall they know that the son whom they despise has some talents.’

Hervey regarded the Prince tolerantly. Did he really think Wilks would put on their little piece if he didn’t know the Prince had had a hand in it. Didn’t he see that the only hope of its ever being on a stage was because his name went with it.

But one must placate royalty, which often meant deceiving it.

‘You, my lord, will know exactly how to manage this. I want to go to the theatre and see our play.’

‘Leave it with me,’ said Hervey.

This Frederick was pleased to do, being certain that in a short time he and his dear friend would be sitting in a box incognito watching the audience delight in their work.


* * *

‘This is not a play,’ cried Wilks scornfully.

‘I think you should put it on nevertheless,’ Hervey told him.

‘The audience wouldn’t sit through it.’

‘I still think you should put it on.’

‘There’s Court interest in this?’

Hervey nodded.

‘Well, I must let the audience know. They’ll not take it otherwise.’

‘Orders are secrecy. Put on the play first. Revelations will come after.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Wilks. ‘Nor will the audience.’


* * *

Frederick and Hervey sat back in their box. The Prince’s eyes were shining with delighted anticipation as he surveyed the audience who had no notion who he was. Even Hervey had disguised his elegance with a big cloak.

‘I love the opening when the players come on to the stage one by one ...’ burbled Frederick.

‘Let us hope the audience do.’

The play began. Frederick watched enchanted, which was more than the audience did. Hervey was aware of their restiveness before Frederick was. They coughed; they shuffled their feet; they talked together and in less than ten minutes they were shouting for Wilks.

‘Take this off and put on a proper play,’ shouted someone from the pit.

Frederick sat back in his seat, his face white.

‘They ... they don’t like it....’

‘They don’t know it was our work,’ replied Hervey cynically. ‘They’re judging it by Gay’s standards ... not by those of royalty.’

‘They ... don’t ... like it!’ repeated Frederick stupidly.

The audience was more than restive; it was angry. Had they paid good money to see nonsense like this? When they compared this with the Beggar’s Opera or Henry VIII there was only one thing they could do.

Someone stood on his seat and shouted it.

‘Give us a play or our money back.’

‘Our money back! Our money back! ‘ screeched the audience.

Someone threw a mouldy orange on to the stage. It was a signal. Missiles were falling thick and fast until Wilks came to stand by the footlights. He held up his hand; there were jeers and catcalls, but Wilks was enough of a man of the theatre to know how to handle an audience.

‘Good people,’ he said, ‘I agree with you. This should never have been offered. You shall all have your money back and come tomorrow when we will have a good play to offer you.’

‘Hurrah! ‘ shouted someone.

Wilks was relieved; he had averted a riot and he had thought at one moment that his theatre was going to be destroyed.

Frederick and Hervey left the theatre crestfallen. Hervey had had a good opinion of his own work; as for Frederick he could not understand how what had seemed a work of genius in the privacy of his apartments could become banal verbose dialogues on a stage.

Although he would have been ready to claim his share of the credit had the play been a success, he now assured himself that the main work had been Hervey’s.

Hervey did not know it but Frederick, that night, began to look at his friend a little critically.


* * *

Hervey could not endure failure and during the next day had an attack of vertigo while he was waiting on the Queen.

He explained afterwards to Frederick that he had successfully hidden this from Her Majesty by gripping a table to steady himself until the attack had passed.

The fact was however brought home to him that he needed a rest. His medical adviser, Dr Cheyne, had suggested he retire to the country for a few weeks and there exist on a strict milk, seed, and vegetable diet. He was going to ask Stephen Fox to accompany him because his family were so healthy they did not understand illness; and Stephen was such a good nurse.

He trusted to be back with His Highness feeling well again in the shortest possible time.

Frederick said that his dear friend must of course go to the country; his health must be their first concern.

So to Ickworth went Hervey, and when he had gone the Prince realized how much he missed him and wondered what he could do to pass the time.


* * *

Anne Vane was wondering too. Strangely enough Hervey excited her more than any of her lovers and she was piqued because he had not even bothered to let her know he was going to the country. This was not the treatment she expected and she wondered how she could pay him for his neglect.

She had an idea when she saw Frederick disconsolately sitting by one of the fountains in the palace gardens ... alone.

She walked past him and dropped her kerchief, letting it flutter close to his feet. He did not see it so she approached with a show of timidity and sweeping a curtsey asked if she had His Highness’s permission to retrieve her kerchief.

Frederick was always charming and gracious to his father’s subjects. In fact in public he was charming and gracious to his family. This won him much popularity which the King was fast forfeiting now that he never failed, when the opportunity arose, to praise Hanover to the detriment of England.

He took the kerchief and rising and bowing presented it to Anne Vane.

She took it and let it drop again.

‘How careless of me! I ... I am overwhelmed by Your Highness’s graciousness.’

‘Oh ... it is nothing.’

‘But Your Highness is always so kind.’ She had raised her eyes to gaze at him with adoration.

‘I have seen you often ... and admired you.’

‘Not as often as I’ve seen you ... and I’ll swear you didn’t bestow as much admiration on me as I did on you.’ ‘You are very kind.’

She giggled slightly. It was an invitation. Anne Vane had never believed in delay. Once she had made up her mind she was ready. One of the advantages of losing one’s virtue, she often said, was that one was so often spared the anguish of decision : Should one? Shouldn’t one? Why not? Was always the answer. What was one more among so many?

‘It is Your Highness who is kind.’

‘Would you care to sit a while?’

She would esteem it the greatest honour.

So she sat and they talked. She did not mention Hervey. She was the most sensuously inviting woman he had ever met, her great virtue being that she always believed the love affair of the moment was going to be the best she had ever known, and was able to get her partner to share that belief.

Frederick was delighted. He ceased to miss Hervey.

He had a companion very much to his taste and that very day Anne Vane became his mistress.


* * *

How pleasant to be in Ickworth! Hervey wondered why he did not come more often. Molly was as coolly aloof as ever, never reproaching him, the perfect wife for a man such as he was.

It was amusing to write his poems and pieces. Pulteney had never forgiven him for that last little difference between them when he had thought he could persuade Hervey to give up his allegiance to Walpole and thus his post as Chamberlain to the Queen.

There had been sly little digs at him in The Craftsman and that venomous little Mr Pope had referred to him under a thin veil of disguise which didn’t deceive any as ‘Lord Fanny’. A slur of course on the feminine side of his nature. Fools! They didn’t realize that to be both masculine and feminine was to have the best of both worlds and was a matter for congratulation rather than ridicule. And when with it went a title, money, leisure, and a pretty wit, the possessor of all these was to be envied.

He was very pleased with the manner in which he arranged his life, and he meant it to be more and more entertaining. In time Frederick would be the King, and his closest friend and adviser was going to be John, Lord Hervey.

At the moment he was busy writing the dedication to a pamphlet which was entitled Sedition and Defamation Displayed. The dedication was to his enemies, the promoters of The Craftsman, headed by Pulteney. This would teach the man to be more careful when he set his writers to work on Lord Fanny, who might paint his cheeks, who might suffer vertigo at levees, but who none the less was a man who could face the wiliest politicians on an equal footing.