Jean Plaidy - Perdita’s Prince

But he showed so clearly that he had no need of her. Yet she would have to prevent his quarrelling with his father. He would have to be made to realize that even he must not indulge in a love affair under their very noses.

‘You find life a little … monotonous?’ she asked.

He inclined his head and suppressed a yawn.

‘I have often thought,’ went on the Queen, ‘that our maids of honour lead very dull lives.’

‘I agree with Your Majesty,’ said the Prince. ‘How dull merely to be one of a formal procession from the presence chamber to the drawing room and never allowed to speak unless one is spoken to.’

‘Some may have nothing worthy to say.’

The Prince had warmed to his subject. ‘Poor ladies! What a life! To make an occasional one of large hoops in a royal coach. I believe they make two new court suits a year and now and then appear in a side box in a royal play.’

‘But she does not have to pay for her seat at the theatre,’ the Queen reminded him.

He looked at her slyly.

‘Save gold, which in her own opinion

Alone could rival snuff’s dominion.

he thought. Trust his mother to think a free seat compensated for a good deal.

‘I agree, Your Majesty, that a maid of honour goes to concerts and plays … and oratorios free. Your Majesty will no doubt remind me that she does not have to pay her physician and gets her medicines for nothing.’

‘You have forgotten one important thing.’

‘No doubt, for the acts of a maid of honour formed no part of my education.’

’I will tell you one,’ replied the Queen. ‘Perhaps you have recently had experience of this. She may flirt with Princes and go to meet them in the moonlight. Is that also … free?’

The Prince was for once discountenanced, and his mother was certain now that Schwellenburg’s hints were true. The Prince had been meeting Harriot Vernon in the moonlight. Heaven knew how far this affair had gone, but if it reached the King’s ears His Majesty would be furious. She was terrified of the King’s anger; it took him so oddly nowadays and she was always afraid of where it would end.

She must act quickly and for once she dismissed the Prince. It was usually he who pleaded his duty to the King and departed as speedily as he could.

As soon as he had left her she sent for Harriot Vernon. The girl stood before her – beautiful, radiant and – guilty.

‘I have sent for you, Miss Vernon,’ said the Queen, ‘to tell you that your services are no longer required at Court.’

‘But Your Majesty …’

The Queen looked surprised. ‘Call Madam von Schwellenburg,’ she commanded.

‘Your Majesty …’

‘I have said, call Madam von Schwellenburg.’

Schwellenburg, listening at the door, had little need to be called. She swept in.

‘Your Majesty calls of me,’ she said.

‘Miss Vernon is leaving us … at once,’ said the Queen. ‘Pray help her to leave … immediately.’

‘Vill see to selfs,’ promised Schwellenburg, and Harriot had no recourse but to leave with her, and the German woman stood over her while she packed her bags and herself ordered the carriage.

Within an hour of that interview with the Queen Harriot Vernon had left Court.

GEORGE MOURNED THE departure of Harriot for a few days and then found a new mistress. He did not have to seek far. He soon proved what he had never doubted; not only was he extremely personable and completely charming, but as he was also the Prince of Wales he was irresistible. More than this his youthful exuberance, his discovery that the most exciting and alluring prospect in life was women made him completely fascinating to that sex; and as he embarked on the lightest of love affairs with the conviction that his partner in the adventure was the one woman in the world to whom he could remain faithful for the rest of his life, even shorn of the trappings of royalty, he would have been a successful lover.

The Queen had given birth to another son, christened Octavius, who was not so strong as his brothers and sisters and almost immediately, to her consternation, she was pregnant again.

It had been impossible to keep the scandal of Harriot Vernon and the inclinations of the Prince from his father, who declared that his eldest son’s conduct gave him many a sleepless night.

But George was impervious to scandal. He had discovered the whole meaning of life; he reiterated constantly to his brothers, equerries and anyone interested that if his parents were too mean to give him his own establishment, no one was going to prevent him living his own life.

His confidant continued to be his brother Frederick who listened avidly to accounts of George’s adventures and began to have a few of his own.

The awkward situations which often accompanied these adventures bothered the Prince very little. There were scandals about him; he had discovered a taste for women older than himself – even Harriot had been a few months older – and his fancy often alighted on those who were married. This could mean jealous husbands, for there were some men who failed to appreciate the honour done to the family by the Prince’s favouring one of its women. There was no lack of aspirants for his favours and this meant that envy prevailed among those whom he passed over towards those whom he favoured.

After the dullness of his boyhood he found life full of excitement – and he determined to enjoy it.

There were several people who had their eyes on him – apart from women. It was natural that politicians who were out of favour with the King and were extremely ambitious should have the notion of forming a rival faction. It would not be the first time there had been a King’s party and a Prince’s party; and now that the latter was growing up the time seemed to have come to make plans. Moreover, no one could deny that the Prince was intelligent. There had never yet been such a cultured member of this branch of the Royal Family. The Prince had taken to learning with alacrity. Perhaps because there had been so little excitement in his boyhood he had sought it in books. The fact remained that he was well versed in the classics, was a good linguist, had a ready wit and was clearly of a very different intellectual calibre from his father.

One man who was watching him with the greatest interest was Charles James Fox. Fox was perhaps one of the most brilliant men in politics and it was galling to him to see the King and Lord North throwing away the American colonies through policies which, it seemed obvious to Fox, were misguided and foolish.

‘The King,’ Fox had said, ‘lowers his head like a cow and goes on chewing the cud, regurgitating over and over again: “They’ll come to their senses.” If only he would come to his.’

Fox was thirty years old – leader of the Whigs, distrusted by the King – and not only for his political opinions. Fox knew the story of Sarah Lennox. He could remember the consternation in the family when the King’s marriage to Charlotte was announced. His mother had been Sarah Lennox’s sister and the whole family had naturally hoped the King would marry Sarah. That it was largely Sarah’s own fault that he had not did not relieve the family anguish. Sarah was a foolish girl – her conduct now was proving that; but she could have been Queen of England with a little careful manoeuvring, for the Foxes would have been a match for the Dowager Princess of Wales and Lord Bute at any time. But Sarah had lost her chance and George had married Charlotte. And this was something for which George could not forgive the Foxes. Every time he set eyes on Sarah’s nephew he thought of Sarah, and quite clearly was resentful because he had had to take the plain dull Charlotte instead.

‘Why he should dislike me,’ Charles James told his friends, ‘would be inconceivable but for the fact that to do so is in accordance with accepted human behaviour. I, with my parents and the rest of the family, would have been delighted to see Sarah as Queen.’

But the King was a simple man and not accustomed to delving into the innermost recesses of his mind to understand his own motives. He merely said: ‘I can’t abide that fellow Fox.’ And he never asked himself if his dislike had anything to do with the loss of Sarah.

Charles James knew that he would never be the leader of the House if the King could help it, and although the King was dependent on his ministers, the King’s favour was of the greatest importance to the members of his government.

So the wily Fox had turned his eyes to the young man who was just emerging into the limelight. If the King would have none of him, why not cultivate the Prince? Why not educate the Prince in politics. Why not revive the old custom – so prevalent in the Hanoverian dynasty – of setting son against father. There could be, as there had been before, the King’s party and that of the Prince of Wales; and as every wise man knew it was more intelligent to attach one’s wagon to the rising than to the setting star.

The Prince was breaking out of his shell; he was indulging in amatory adventures to the tolerant amusement of the cynical members of the Court, and although a small part of these rumours reached the ears of his parents and their staid supporters, very little could be done to prevent the princely exploits. The Prince was as much a prisoner now as they could make him – still he managed his secret intrigues. But when he was eighteen they could scarcely treat him as a child of twelve. The people would never allow that. And George was only a few months from his eighteenth birthday.