Виктория Холт - Indiscretions of the Queen

The men looked helpless and it was Brougham who spoke, ‘Your Highness must consider what this could mean.’

‘I have considered,’ cried Charlotte imperiously. ‘I have made up my mind. I am tired of being my father’s prisoner. I am going to be free. I am going to be with my own mother, It’s what I want. It’s what the people want.’

Caroline said: ‘Tell me what has happened.’

Charlotte laughed. ‘I refuse to marry Orange.’ She shivered. ‘I absolutely refuse and I have told him so. For one thing it would mean living in Holland which is something I will not do. And why should I? I shall one day be the Queen of England. England is where I propose to live.’

‘And your father knows this?’ asked Caroline.

Charlotte rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘The scene! You should have heard it.

I will say this for him— he has a fine command of the language. But do you know how he is going to punish me? He’s going to dismiss all my staff and provide me with— jailers. I won’t have it. We’ll be together, won’t we? We’ll be a pair of outcasts.’

Brougham said: ‘Your Highness will explain to the Princess Charlotte how impossible such a plan would be.’

Caroline nodded. ‘They wouldn’t let us be together, my angel. I’d have no power to keep you— happy as I should be to do so.’

‘Oh, Mamma, how cruel they all are!’

‘Yes, my darling, but we must needs put up with it.’

Lord Eldon was regarding Charlotte with disapproval. He would have liked to deal severely with that tempestuous and bouncing girl; if she were his, he had told the Regent, he would lock her up.

Brougham explained tactfully that the law had to be considered as well as her father. She was very young. She was in the care of the State. She would have to remember this.

‘I’d have you remember that I am the heiress to the throne. One day I shall be your Queen.’

‘We know it, Your Highness, and it is for this reason that you must submit to the law.’

Charlotte looked piteously at her mother, and Caroline could only nod.

‘He’s right, I fear, my darling. You’ll have to go back. Perhaps when your father knows how strongly you feel, he will be lenient with you.’

Brougham with a dramatic gesture went to the window and drew aside the curtains. It was dark, being past midnight.

He said dramatically: ‘It is quiet out there now, Your Highness; but with dawn the people will begin to gather. If they know that you have run away in defiance of your father it could start a riot— worse still. Who knows? And once these disturbances begin there is no knowing where they will end. You would not wish to start a civil war, I am sure, which could mean bloodshed for thousands of innocent people.’

Charlotte was staring wide-eyed.

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘Everyone here will bear me out.’

She looked round at the assembled company.

And no one denied him.

Brougham knew that he had averted a difficult situation. The Princess Charlotte would return and obey her father.

The allied forces against Napoleon had entered Paris; Napoleon had been obliged to abdicate and had retired to Elba. The French exiles, who had been living in as much state as they could muster in Aylesbury, had left with great pomp and ceremony for Versailles.

Caroline was thoughtful. The Continent was safe for travellers. Why should she not put into practice a plan which had been formulating for a long time?

Why should she stay in England to be humiliated? Why should she not travel?

She had always wanted to. Next to children, travel could excite her more than anything in the world.

There was only one person who could keep her here for she could take Willikin with her: that was Charlotte. But of what use was she to Charlotte? In fact now that Charlotte had been sent to Cranbourne Lodge in Windsor Forest, she doubted whether she would be allowed to see her for months.

No, she was the cause of much of the friction between Charlotte and her father.

She would be better out of the way.

Of one thing she could be certain. The Regent would put nothing in the way of her going.

She was right. He did not. And so Caroline began to make her plans to leave England.

So it was goodbye to England. Caroline’s feelings were mixed. It was sad to leave Charlotte; but she had Willikin to comfort her; and as she drove to Worthing with the boy and her two ladies-in-waiting, Lady Charlotte Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Forbes, she believed that she had at least some of whom she loved to be her constant companions. Lady Charlotte Campbell had gone to Europe in advance and would join her later; and in her there was another dear friend.

The people had cheered her all along the route. It was as though they did not wish her to go. She had their sympathy. She took Willie’s hand and pressed it; he was excited, excited to be setting out on adventures with his dear Mamma who spoilt him, as everyone said, so atrociously.

Brougham had not wished her to go; in fact he had done his best to dissuade her. She was not entirely sure of him; in fact she was not sure of any politicians and often wondered how politic their partisanship was. Were they for her for the sake of their party— or against her for that reason? She was well aware that numbers of her enemies were such because they wished to please the Prince Regent.

She thought as she had many times of how different her life, would have been if she had been allowed to marry dearest Töbingen. Then she would have had a big family of children— not just one daughter whom she could scarcely call her own because the dear child had never been allowed to be with her, and one son who was not her own, much as she loved him. She had been forced to lavish all that great mother-love on Willikin and sometimes she admitted to herself that he was extremely self-willed and not very intelligent. Not that she did not love him.

She loved all children. But if she could have had that Töbingen brood— Brougham had said to her: ‘Your Highness should never forget that what the Prince Regent desires is to prove you guilty of immorality. He wants a divorce.

You are going to be surrounded by spies.’

That had made her laugh. ‘I will give them something to report to their master.’

‘I beg of Your Highness to take care.’

‘Why, my dear friend,’ she replied, ‘you would deprive me of one of the greatest pleasures in my life which is precisely not taking care.’

Brougham was dismayed. What a wild impulsive woman she was, impossible to direct.

He looked at her severely. ‘Your Highness should know the worse. Do you know what the Duke of Clarence has told the Captain of the ship on which you sail?’

‘Well, I should be surprised if he spoke against me. My brothers-in-law have always been my friends.’

‘He does not think to speak unkindly. Your Highness knows there has been much scandal surrounding you.’

‘Ha. Those Douglases! I’d like to see them in court. And what has Clarence said of me?’

‘He has told the Captain that he should have a love affair with you, that he can be sure he would not be repulsed and the Prince Regent would have no objection.

In fact would be more likely to reward him.’

Caroline burst out laughing. ‘It has come to a pretty pass when Mrs.

Fitzherbert’s husband tries to bribe a noble sea captain to sleep with me!’

Poor Brougham! He had been exasperated with her. And no wonder. After all his defence of her was going to make him famous. And he believed that her mode of life would certainly lead her into trouble sooner or later and this was particularly so since the Prince Regent would do his best to bring her there.

But nothing he could say would deter her. She was going on her travels because life in England was no longer endurable. She was to be known as the Countess of Wolfenbüttel— a thin disguise, for her face and figure had been made well known by the cartoonists, and her heavy pelisse caught together by fasteners of gold, and her hat of mauve and green, on which drooped a large green feather, were characteristic of the Princess of Wales. She had designed a costume for her gentlemen— embroidered black coats lined with scarlet silk, gold embroidered waistcoats and feathered hats.

She was clearly no ordinary traveller.

From the first there was an uneasy atmosphere in the travelling party, every member of which was aware that they might be called upon at some future time to report on the Princess’s actions. Caroline herself seemed to be unaware of this— or perhaps indifferent to it; but there was not one member of her suite who could bear to contemplate giving evidence against the Princess— which would be extremely disloyal, or against the Prince Regent which would be extremely unwise.

There was scarcely one of them who did not wish himself or herself back in England. At the best this was not a pleasure trip; it was banishment, and home began to look very inviting.

Lady Charlotte Lindsay begged leave to go and visit her sister Lady Glenbervie at Spa.

‘You must go and see the dear creature,’ declared Caroline. ‘And rejoin me at Naples.’

By the time she reached Brunswick her chamberlain St. Leger had begged leave to return to England, for his heath could not stand up to the rigours of travel.

Caroline gave the permission and the Hon. Keppel Craven took his place. Sir William Gell who had shared a chamberlain’s duties with St. Leger began, to suffer acutely from the gout but he remained with her, and realizing now that her suite were not anxious to accompany her— and guessing the reason— she shrugged her shoulders, but she did feel very grateful to the few who remained.