Jean Plaidy - The Regent’s Daughter

So Dr Nott went and the affair was suddenly over.

Mrs Udney was very amused and gratified by the way everything had turned out.

It was pleasant to think she could still make her little trips to Mr Gillray’s shop in St James’s where she could buy his latest prints and see how his life was progressing with Miss Humphrey.

Dr William Short was appointed to take Nott’s place and the Prince of Wales decided that as Charlotte was now thirteen it was time she learned something about the laws and the government of the country; so in addition to Dr Short, William Adam was sent to her to give her instruction. This was significant because Adam, lawyer and politician, had become Solicitor General and Attorney General to the Prince of Wales and Keeper of the Great Seal for the Duchy of Cornwall. He was a Whig and ardent admirer of the late Charles James Fox – although at one time they had fought a duel. Adam’s task was to make a Whig of Charlotte and this he found by no means difficult. Young and impressionable, she was charmed with Adam who was a man of very easy manners and personal attraction, though well advanced in his fifties. He won Charlotte’s affection immediately, for he was gay and kind; and he had recently lost his wife which made him at times attractively melancholy.

Charlotte was delighted by the change which had taken away poor old Dr Nott and put in his place this exciting personality, and it was through William Adam that Charlotte made an important friendship.

One day after she and Adam had had their lesson on parliamentary affairs, Adam mentioned his niece Margaret Mercer Elphinstone.

‘Mercer,’ he said, ‘we’ve always called her Mercer – has more personality than any woman I know. Mind you, she is a girl yet. Well, she would be some eight years older than Your Highness. But she is intelligent and forthright … indeed a young woman of great character. I think Your Highness would be interested in meeting her, so if at some time you will give me permission to present her …’

Charlotte thought everything that William Adam said was full of wisdom and she could scarcely wait to meet his niece.

So very soon Margaret Mercer Elphinstone was presented.

Charlotte was enchanted. Mercer had the most wonderful red hair; she was handsome and undeniably attractive; she was certainly forthright, poised and extremely knowledgeable of the world; she could talk politics with the utmost ease and it was obvious that William Adam had a respect for her opinions, and she was an ardent Whig.

The hour she spent with Charlotte passed all too quickly and when it was over Charlotte declared: ‘You must come and see me again. Please … when?’

Mercer replied coolly that when the Princess chose to command her she would come.

‘Command!’ cried Charlotte impetuously. ‘Let there be no talk of command. I want you to be my friend.’

There was no doubt that Mercer was pleased. She said she was glad of that because she had been hoping they would be true friends and between friends rank meant nothing.

‘I am so pleased you came,’ said Charlotte; and Mercer said she would call the next day.

Margaret Mercer Elphinstone was an exceedingly rich young woman; as the only child of Viscount Keith (whose sister William Adam had married) she was his heiress as well as her maternal grandfather’s; and because of her wealth she was pursued by suitors who, however, admired her as well as coveting her fortune.

Mercer opened a new world for Charlotte. Mercer attended balls and all kinds of functions where she had met interesting people. She had stories to tell of that wild and extraordinary young man Lord Byron who, Mercer confessed, had it in his mind to become one of her suitors. He was handsome, witty and had some deformity in his foot of which he was most ashamed. ‘I often wonder whether I should marry him,’ said Mercer. ‘I might be able to help him.’

‘Does he need help?’ Charlotte wanted to know eagerly. ‘He seems to be so sought after.’

‘Oh, everyone is amused and interested by him. But at the same time he is often melancholy. He will be a great poet one day and I am sure I could help him.’

Charlotte was equally sure Mercer would be able to; in fact there was nothing, according to Charlotte, that Mercer could not do.

She thought about Mercer constantly. She wanted to give her presents; when Mercer was absent she wrote long letters to her and could not be lured away from the writing table.

‘It has made all the difference to me,’ she declared, ‘to have a friend of my own.’ She quickly became passionately fond of Mercer; when Mercer was coming to see her she was filled with gaiety; when she went away she was melancholy.

She gave a ring to her friend in which she had had a message engraved stating her love for her friend and expressed the hope that Mercer would always keep it.

Mercer vowed she would and it would be a precious memento for the rest of her life; it would be a comfort if the day came when she was separated from Charlotte.

‘That day shall never come,’ declared Charlotte. ‘I shall see to that. When I am queen you shall be chief minister.’

That made Mercer laugh. Would they allow a woman to be that? she asked.

‘I am the one who shall make such decisions and I will have no one else.’

How pleasant it was to talk of the future. They also discussed the politics of the past; Mercer was widely informed on the Colonies question and she told how they would never have been lost if Fox had been in power. Fox was the greatest politician of the age and he had simply never had a chance to show his genius. Poor Lord North had vacillated – and the King with him – and so England had lost America. Mercer wanted to free the country from Tory influence, so Charlotte did too.

How exciting the world had become since she had known Mercer – and to think that she had once thought it the height of bliss to sit on a stool in Mr Richardson’s bakery and eat his buns!

Lady de Clifford reported the absorbing friendship to the Queen, who decided to speak to Charlotte.

‘Future rulers,’ said the Queen, ‘should never make particular friendships. People are apt to presume on such … they may be the best of people but the fact that one is going one day to be in a position of importance should make one very careful.’

What is the old Begum talking about? thought Charlotte.

‘Your great and only source of happiness comes from your father,’ went on the Queen. ‘You should not look for it in other directions until he advises you to do so.’

Now what did that mean? Until her father procured a man and said ‘Marry him’? She would not allow herself to be forced into that, Mercer believed in independence. ‘If you are weak people will impose on you,’ said Mercer. How right she was. How right she always was. And how adorable! The best friend in the world.

Charlotte looked obliquely at her grandmother.

If she thought she was going to spoil her friendship with Mercer, she was very much mistaken.

Nothing was done to prevent the friendship, which strengthened as the months passed. Then a series of tragedies struck the royal family and it seemed to Charlotte that she was jerked out of her childhood and nothing was ever quite the same again.

The trouble appeared to start because of a conflict between two of her uncles, Edward, Duke of Kent, whom she had never liked, and her favourite of them all, Uncle Fred, Duke of York.

It was such a scandal that try as they might they could not keep it from her; and that was the beginning.

EDWARD, DUKE OF KENT, was a frustrated man. His military career had been a bitter disappointment and the only one in the world who understood how he suffered was Julie – known as Madame de St Laurent. She was the only person in the world for whom he cared; for years now he had regarded her as his wife; and he wanted no other. The family accepted her, for it was realized that as he was a royal duke there could be no marriage ceremony, and Edward therefore must dispense with it. The affairs of the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert and the Duke of Sussex with his Goosey had shown how worthless such ceremonies were.

Julie was beautiful, discreet and in every way except one, worthy to marry into the royal family; and that one reason was that she was not royal. She would not allow this fact to give Edward the smallest cause for anxiety. Julie made it clear that she was content with her lot; and she wanted Edward to be the same. He was certainly content with Julie; it was the way in which he had been treated which angered him.

He was unlike the Prince of Wales in that he lacked that easy charm which was so much a part of his elder brother’s character. Edward was a soldier who had been trained in the grimmest of schools. He was without humour; he behaved like a Prussian; and that had made him unpopular with Englishmen.

It was his Prussian attitudes which were responsible for his recall from Gibraltar.

Only to Julie could he talk of this matter; only to her could he explain the frustration. Julie understood it and it alarmed her because she sensed his growing jealousy of his brother, Frederick. ‘Frederick, Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief of the Army!’ He always gave him his full title when he spoke of him; and the bitterness he revealed made her shiver.

It would have been too wounding to point out that Frederick’s easy-going nature ensured his popularity with the men – something which Edward, good soldier though he was, could never win.

He had begun to talk constantly of his brothers. ‘George,’ he would say with a sneer, ‘thinks of nothing but his own pleasure. He’s seen about with that ridiculous dandy Brummell and they discuss coats and neckcloths ad nauseam. And now he is creating a scandal with that Hertford woman, behaving like a lovesick schoolboy, following her round, gazing at her like a sick cow … tears in his eyes … and all the time living with Maria Fitzherbert. And this is the man who could one day be king … any day … by the state of my father’s health. But Frederick … Commander-in-Chief of the Army …’ He could not go on. His anger choked him.