Newcastle was the last man. Yet he was an able statesman, and there were not so many of those.

‘It leaves only Valpole,’ said the Queen, and then feared she had been too bold.

‘Valpole ...’ grumbled the King.

‘He is perhaps the only man who can increase the Civil List . . . and it must be increased. Ve have so many children. Valpole can do it. I remember your father’s saying that this man could turn stones into gold.’

‘For his own benefit he vill do this.’

Tut to do it for us vill be to his benefit. The fat ox vill understand this.’

George was thoughtful. It was true.

‘It is no harm to send for him,’ said the Queen. ‘Then Your Majesty can judge him.’

‘I vill see him,’ said the King.


* * *

So Walpole presented himself to the Queen. Caroline was delighted that he should first come to her. George must not know this, but it was how it should be in the future, and it delighted her to know that Walpole understood this.

‘The King is not satisfied with the Civil List,’ she told him. ‘Compton does not seem to be able to make them understand how we are placed. He vill give me only £6o,000 a year and it is not enough.’

‘Your Majesty should have £100,000 a year,’ declared Walpole.

The Queen’s eyes gleamed. £40,000 more than Compton had wanted to provide.

‘You think this could be arranged?’

‘I believe, Your Majesty, that I could arrange it.’

A tacit agreement? wondered the Queen. Give me your support and you shall be well rewarded. £40,000 a year! It was a good sum.

‘You can svay the House, Sir Robert,’ she said with a smile. ‘I know that yell. Perhaps you have some suggestions for the King?’

‘The late King had a Civil List of £700,000, and His Majesty, then Prince of Wales, received £100,000.’

‘This Compton vants to give our son Frederick, now Prince of Vales, this although he is a young man unmarried and the King, when Prince of Vales, had a family to support.’

‘Your Majesty, the £100,000 which was paid to the Prince of Wales should be added to the £700,000 Civil List, arid Your Majesties should decide what you will allow the Prince from it.’

‘That is von good idea.’

‘Then I do not see why a further £130,000 should not be provided. The King’s subjects will rejoice to see him keep a more kingly Court than his father did.’

‘And the Parliament?’

Walpole smiled. ‘I think there is one man who can arrange their acceptance of these proposals.’

‘Sir Robert Valpole?’ asked the Queen.

Walpole bowed. ‘At the service of Your Majesties,’ he answered.


* * *

Walpole was triumphant. The King had implied that he should continue in his old office provided he get the Civil List passed through.

There was no subtlety about George.

‘I vant it for life,’ he said; ‘and remember, it is for your life too.’

It had not been difficult. The government knew that Walpole’s future hung on the passing of the Civil List; and it knew too that without Walpole it could not long exist. So there he was, the fat ox of a man, smiling blandly at them, laying the suggestions before them which he knew they could not afford to oppose.

Bribery of a sort—but not unknown in politics.

The King and Queen had their money; and Walpole was returned to power.

He laughed to himself as he rode down to Richmond to ell Maria about it.

‘You, my dear,’ he said triumphantly, ‘are not the only one who can’t do without me.’

While the King and Queen were congratulating themselves on the easy way in which they had acquired a large income a blow struck from an unexpected direction.

Letters were delivered to the King and among them was one from his distant cousin the Duke of Wolfenbüttel.

The Duke had written that he was in a somewhat delicate position, and he hoped the King of England would advise him what should be done.

King George I, His Majesty’s father, had left with him a copy of his will in case the original was lost in some way. He did not want to interfere in his cousin’s arrangements in any way, but he had heard that the King of Prussia had hoped that his wife, Queen Sophia Dorothea, who was after all the daughter of the late King, would have profited from her father’s will. The Duke of Wolfenbüttel was hard pressed at the time and he sent congratulations to his more affluent relative. He was also in a quandary, for on one side was the King of Prussia who, he believed, was ready to pay handsomely for a glimpse of the will, and on the other his friend and cousin George II. He was writing this letter first of all to ascertain the wishes of His Majesty. It gave him great pleasure to have the Duchess of Kendal as his guest at Wolfenbüttel, for he knew full well in what great regard the late King had held that lady....

When the King received this letter his eyes bulged with fury. He took it to the Queen who read it and looked very grave.

Who would have thought the sly old man would have made a copy and deposited it where it was out of the reach of his son’s hands!

And what a stroke of ill luck that the Duchess of Kendal, who would no doubt profit as much as anyone from the late King’s will, should at this time actually be staying as a guest in the house of the man who had a copy of the will.

The promptest action was clearly needed.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘Volfenbüttel has not made its contents known. I suppose Your Majesty will do as he is asking and buy this copy of the vill?’

‘Got damn him!’ cried George.

‘And as soon as possible. He might change his mind. The Duchess of Kendal is actually under his roof. Who knows what pressure she might bring to bear.’

‘She is vithout power.’

‘She is on the spot. And the King of Prussia may yell make a big offer for the vill.’

‘I vill send a trusted man at vonce.’

‘And I vill write to the Duchess assuring her of my friendship. It vould be yell if she came back to England ... and quickly.’

The King despatched a messenger without delay and the Queen went to her apartments and immediately wrote to the Duchess.

‘My first thought, my dear Duchess, has been of you in the misfortune which has befallen us; I know well your devotion and love for the late King, and I fear for your health; only the resignation which you have always shown to the divine will can sustain you under such a loss. I wish I could convey to you how much I feel for you, and how anxious I am about your health, but it is impossible for me to do so adequately. I cannot tell you how greatly this trouble has affected me ...’

Caroline paused to smile cynically. What joy it had brought! No more to he plagued by that old scoundrel, to have her children with her. Would poor Ermengarda see through this hypocrisy? Not she! She had always been simple—except in money matters. Ah, there was the point. If she knew of the existence of that will, she would guess that she would be one of the main beneficiaries and she would no longer be the King’s simple Ermengarda Schulemburg whom he had made Duchess of Kendal. Money had always sharpened Ermengarda’s wits.

Caroline continued:

‘I had the honour of knowing the late King, and you know that to know him was sufficient to make one love him also ...’

Oh, no! That was too much! But in Ermengarda’s present mood she would accept it. George I had been a god to her when he lived; now he would naturally have become a saint. And Ermengarda must come back to England; she must be safely settled in the shadows for ever more.

‘I know that you always tried to render good service to the present King. He knows it too and I hope you realize that I am your friend. It is my pleasure and duty to remind you of the fact and to tell you that I and the King will always be glad to do all we can to help you. Write to me, I beg you, and give me an opportunity to show how much I love you.



Caroline.’

Its falseness was apparent in every line. But Ermengarda might not see this. She was almost out of her wits with grief for the King whose constant companion and devoted mistress she had been for so many years.

Caroline despatched the letter that it might arrive at the same time as the Duke of Wolfenbüttel received the handsome sum George was sending in payment for the will.

There were many anxious days before the copy of his father’s will was in the King’s hands and, once there, immediately given the same treatment as the other copy.

Coronation


EVERYONE’S thoughts were now occupied with the coronation.