The Queen shrugged her shoulders. ‘George will have the best of everything.’

She laughed again; but the King did not feel in the least like laughing. He was worried. It was not so long ago that the French had taken their king to the guillotine and cut off his head. When such a mighty conflagration as the Revolution was raging across the Channel, a neighbor so near as England could not expect to remain aloof. The execution of a king must stir up feeling against all monarchies. Are we so safe over here? wondered the King. And one of the most unpopular members of the royal family was the Prince of Wales.

‘If they go on like this,’ he said, ‘there’ll be no kings left in Europe. Eh, what?’

The Queen was accustomed to the manner in which the King’s thoughts strayed from one topic to another and she knew how much events on the other side of the Channel had preyed on his mind. If the King were incapacitated again she was going to make sure that she had a say in affairs and if George became Regent, she would conspire with Pitt to put a limit on his powers.

‘George’s behaviour does not help to make Royalty popular,’ she observed.

‘And now this marriage of his. If he had listened to me—’

‘When has he ever listened to either of us?’

The Queen lifted her shoulders. ‘Well, he married that his debts should be paid and it is high time that they should be. I hear that some of the trades-people involved are getting very restive.’

‘Something must be done— must be done. Don’t want trouble, eh, what?

Must speak to Pitt. Should not be too much delay.’

‘Yes, speak to Pitt. It is a well known fact that the Prince centered into this marriage for one reason only— and that was because he was in debt to such an extent that it could no longer go on.’

The Queen smiled. Lady Jersey reported to her regularly.

Between them— and with the help of the Prince, of, course— they would make Caroline wish she had never heard of the Prince of Wales.

Mr. Pitt was not inclined to make life easy for the Prince of Wales. Why should he? The heir to the throne had consistently shown himself to be the enemy of Mr. Pitt, had allied himself with Mr. Pitt’s enemies, and had made no secret of the fact that Fox was his man and on the day when he inherited the Crown he would do all in his power to oust Mr. Pitt from his position and set up in his place Mr. Fox or one of his Whig cronies.

The Prime Minister was too much of a politician to help such an enemy. It was Pitt who forced Fox to deny in the House of Commons the Prince’s marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert which had been responsible for making such a breach between Fox and the Prince that it had, Pitt believed, never entirely been healed. But the Prince was a Whig and Mr. Pitt and his Tones were prepared to do as little as possible for him.

The Prince’s debts seemed to be a recurring problem. How one man could manage to spend such large sums was a mystery. Should the Nation be expected to pay an extravagant young man’s gambling debts and those he had incurred in the pursuit of women— and Lady Jersey was one of the most rapacious of his band— merely because he was the Prince of Wales?

Certainly not.

Mr. Pitt made his proposals to the House of Commons.

The Prince’s debts, he explained, were once more a subject for discussion. He regretted to inform the House that they amounted to some £619,570— a vast sum of money they would all agree. He proposed as follows: The Prince’s income should be increased to £125,000 a year exclusive of those revenues due to him from the Duchy of Cornwall which he estimated as some £13,000 a year.

£120,000 should be allowed to the Prince for the completion of Carlton House.

He did not, however, propose to settle the Prince’s debts. He believed that the best manner of dealing with this problem was for the Treasury to deduct £73,000 from the Prince’s income per annum and this should be done until his debts were settled. This seemed to him the best possible solution to a delicate matter.

- When the Prince heard what the Government proposed he was furious.

He raved to Lady Jersey: ‘They have cheated me. I married this woman whom I loathe solely because my creditors were threatening action if they were not paid.

And I went through this marriage with her— this farce of marriage— and now I am worse off than ever. They have increased my income and will deduct £73,000 a year to pay these wretched debts. I shall be worse off than before.’

Lady Jersey was mournful. The Prince’s poverty affected her deeply. She did not wish him to cut down his expenses; she was doing very well and if there was less to be gained because the Prince must be ‘careful’— what a hateful word— he was far from pleased.

She tried to soothe him. ‘It is not final yet. It has to be passed.’

‘Pitt!’ he said. ‘It’s always Pitt. That fellow hates me. What a diabolical plot!

To deduct such a sum from my income!’

He thought of that other occasion when he had been unable to pay his debts and the King would not help him. He had economized; he had sold his horses, shut up most of Carlton House; and he and Maria had gone down to Brighton in a hired coach. It had seemed such fun then. They had enjoyed their economizing.

But then he had enjoyed everything with Maria. Maria had never wanted anything; she had never craved money, jewels— He looked with faint distaste at his mistress— that dainty creature who sometimes reminded him of a snake. But she still knew how to fascinate him, though not so completely as she once had done.

Yes, they had shut up Carlton House and gone down to Brighton and they had lived in a manner which he called humble— and now looking back he could believe that had been the happiest time of his life.

How different this was! His debts unpaid; his income raised and yet he would be poor because from it he would be obliged to pay his debts.

It was insulting. And it was more than that. It was infuriating, maddening and tragic because to achieve this end had had been forced to marry a woman he loathed, He hated her more than ever now. And what consolation had he? Frances Jersey— when his heart cried out for Maria Fitzherbert.

Caroline was in despair. She had not believed that it could be quite like this. Although she had not expected her husband to fall passionately in love with her on sight, she had allowed herself to imagine that in time they would come to an understanding. But how could they, when he loathed her and made no secret of the effect she had on him.

I would have tried, she reminded herself. But, by God, if he is going to humiliate me then I shall show him that I care nothing for him? Lady Jersey! That woman was always close to her. And he had placed her there. She would not have blamed him for having a mistress; but surely he should have had the good taste, the good manners, to keep his liaison from his wife. The First Gentleman indeed! Then God help women if he was the finest example of his sex, ‘I hate him!’ she cried in the privacy of her apartments, But that was in private. No one was going to know how hurt she was She wondered how best to hurt him. She found a way. She had seen Maria Fitzherbert, the woman who had once so enslaved him that he had committed the utmost folly of going through a form of marriage with her.

So that was Maria! She seemed an old woman to Caroline. She must be well past forty. And what airs! One would have thought she were indeed Princess of Wales Handsome in a way, but with a beak of nose. Lovely hair. Better than mine? Caroline asked herself . I don’t think so. A good skin it was true, but fat and unmistakably middle-aged. She told him when next she saw him. ‘I met Widow Fitzherbert. What a Madam, eh? Mrs. Fitzherbert, they told me, I thought she was visiting Royalty— or at least a Duchess. Then I hear she’s plain Mrs. Fair-fat-and forty!’

He had turned scarlet with anger. How dare she attack his goddess. He gave her a look of the utmost contempt and she knew that he was comparing them and that he saw the middle-aged widow as eternally beautiful and herself eternally repulsive. He revealed something else. In his way he was still in love with the woman— more so than with Lady Jersey.

It was hurtful but gratifying in a way. It might well be that Madame Jersey would not always be at hand to torment her.

Caroline went about with a defiant air. She had given up trying to please him; instead she did her best to make him aware that she had no love for him. And yet she longed to win his affection. She had heard much about his elegance, so she tried to be elegant too, but she only succeeded in looking more vulgar in his eyes.

She could never compete with the exquisite ladies of his circle; and the more she tried to, the more dismally she failed. Knowing how he admired wit, she tried to be witty; her clumsy efforts to amuse were even more pathetic than her attempts to dress with taste.

Everything she did made him despise her the more.

God damn him! she cried. Why did they bring me here? I wish they had kept their Prince of Wales. Then she would think of Major von Täbingen, yearn for him and dream of the happy life they might have had together. She wished then that she had died when they took him from her— which she believed she almost had.

And then in the midst of her despair she made a discovery. She forgot her miseries; she even forgot the lost joy she might have had with Major von Töbingen. She forgot everything but what the future was promising her now.

That sad and sordid union was to bear fruit.

She was going to have a child.