‘A matter,’ she added, ‘which the Princess should have heard from myself or the Prince Regent.’

‘But what does it matter from what source I heard it?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘Besides, I knew about it. Everyone is talking about it.’

‘Everyone, Charlotte? I beg of you, do not exaggerate. This is a most distressing affair and made unnecessarily so, I fear.’

‘It is inevitable,’ retorted Charlotte. ‘I am too old for governesses.’

The Queen said: ‘I am surprised that you feel so little regret at the prospect of Lady de Clifford’s departure. She has been with you so many years. I’m afraid this shows a most unfeeling nature.’

‘It doesn’t,’ contradicted Charlotte. ‘It’s merely that the time has come for me to do without a governess.’

‘That,’ replied the Queen shortly, ‘is not a matter for you to decide. Your father will doubtless convey his decision to you in due course.’

‘His decision! I hope Your Majesty does not mean that he has another governess in mind for me!’

‘A father is in no way bound to explain his decision to a daughter and a daughter has only to concern herself with obedience.’

Charlotte was angry but, as always in the presence of the Queen, was unable to explain her feelings.

But those letters which she and Mercer had composed would, by now – or very nearly – be in the hands of her father and his Prime Minister. Then the trouble would begin.

The Regent read his daughter’s letter with an astonishment which quickly turned to fury. So she would lay down instructions to him! She would plague him! Was it not enough that he should have to tolerate the wife an unkind fate had given him! Must he be cursed as well with a disobedient troublemaking daughter!

She would soon discover that it was not her prerogative to order him, and as soon as a new governess was appointed and her present household completely reorganized the better.

He sent for his Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon, and gave him Charlotte’s letter to read.

‘Well?’ demanded the Prince.

Eldon grunted. ‘Her Highness will need very firm treatment,’ he said.

The Regent nodded. He could trust the wily lawyer to stand by him in this matter which was an important one when there were such rival factions at work. Charlotte might be a minor just now but she was an heiress to the throne – and this was doubtless the reason for her defiance, for she was fully aware of her position. But ‘Bags’ – his nickname for Eldon – could be relied on. He was the best sort of henchman, perhaps because his roots were in trade rather than the aristocracy, and he had had to rely on his own abilities to reach his present position. His father had been ‘in coal’ at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whatever that meant. The Regent thought of it vaguely as ‘Trade’. However, he was not one to look closely into a man’s origins. Old Bags was his Chancellor and his man.

‘We shall go at once to Windsor to see my daughter,’ announced the Prince.

‘And explain to her doubtless that it is not for her to dictate to Your Highness.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And that Your Highness sees clearly how much she is in need of a governess?’

‘It is obvious, is it not?’

‘Your Highness has chosen?’

‘I am considering the Duchess of Leeds.’

Eldon inclined his head. ‘And the rest of her household?’

‘I think a clean sweep, don’t you, Bags? We have already dismissed some of them.’

‘Your Highness shows your usual insight. My daughter …’

‘Would like a place in Charlotte’s household? I don’t see why not.’

Bags was well satisfied.

Charlotte stood before her father, cowering a little in the face of his fury which he was showing with great dramatic effect – not entirely assumed for he really was annoyed with her. The Queen, snuffling from a cold (and no wonder, thought Charlotte, when one considered those horrible draughty corridors at Windsor. ‘Enough to drive a man o’ war,’ someone had said) sat watching her granddaughter with baleful satisfaction.

Lord Eldon stood close by the Regent as though to support him. (Silly old man. As if the powerful Regent needed protecting from his daughter!)

‘This letter,’ the Prince was saying, ‘which you have had the effrontery to send to me and worse still to my Lord Liverpool is the most foolish, ineffectual, disloyal and ridiculous document it has ever been my misfortune to read.’

‘It … it is what I mean,’ stammered Charlotte.

‘What you mean! What exactly do you mean? You will have no more governesses, you say. Let me tell you, that is not a matter for you to decide. Lady de Clifford is resigning and may I say it is time, too, since she seems unable to induce you to behave with the dignity due to your rank. Your conduct shocks us all. Her Majesty …’ The Queen nodded sharply and looked malevolently at Charlotte … ‘My lord Chancellor …’ Lord Eldon raised his eyes to the ceiling and Charlotte would have liked to throw something at him. ‘Myself …’ The Prince held a lace kerchief to his eyes to wipe away an imaginary tear … ‘We are all deeply wounded by your thoughtless and indeed callous behaviour.’

‘Papa, Your Highness, I am nearly seventeen …’

‘We are fully aware of your age and that makes your conduct all the more to be deplored. I should have thought you were old enough to realize the pain you are causing us all …’

‘It causes me pain that I should be treated as a child.’

There were shocked looks from the Queen and Eldon because she had interrupted the Prince Regent.

‘It is clear,’ commented the Queen grimly, ‘that you have not yet finished with governesses. You are in sore need of correction.’

‘Exactly so,’ agreed the Regent. ‘You are headstrong and perverse. So pray let us hear no more of your folly.’

Charlotte stamped her foot. She had to stand firm now or they would keep her shackled for years. Mercer had said she must put her case clearly. Her mother had told her to defy the Regent and the old Begum. They would have to realize that there were powerful men ready to help her.

‘But,’ she began. ‘I … I will never submit to another governess. A … lady companion I might consider, but never a governess.’

‘There you are wrong,’ corrected the Regent, ‘for a governess you shall have. Pray do not attempt to go against my wishes. I may tell you that I know of certain very unfortunate scenes which have passed between you and certain young men, and for this alone I could have you shut up for life if I felt so inclined.’

‘S … shut up for life!’

‘I am referring to Hesse and Fitzclarence and certain meetings in Windsor Forest. Utterly disgraceful. Utterly unworthy of a princess of your rank. There has been correspondence with people whom I have forbidden you to know. Can you deny this?

Charlotte was silent and the Regent went on triumphantly: ‘There! You see! You show your guilt.’

‘If you … shut me up like a prisoner, what can you expect?’

‘My lord Eldon,’ cried the Regent, ‘what would you do if you had such a daughter?’

‘Your Highness,’ replied Eldon, ‘I should lock her up.’

Charlotte looked at Eldon in silence for some seconds then turning to her father asked if she might retire.

‘You may if you have come to your senses.’

She made a somewhat clumsy curtsey in his direction and another to the Queen and left them.

In her apartment she threw herself on to her bed and burst into tears.

Lady de Clifford, eager to know what had taken place, came hurrying in.

‘What is it, my dearest Princess? What has happened to upset you?’

Charlotte sat up and stared fiercely before her. ‘That coal heaver said I should be locked up. Let him wait until I’m Queen. I’ll make him wish he had died before he had said that.’

‘Lock you up!’ tittered Lady de Clifford. ‘Rather unseemly words for a coal heaver to use when referring to the future Queen of England.’

Charlotte pummelled her pillow as though it were the offending Eldon’s head. But she was really thinking that she had lost her battle. She was no match for them and they had decided to saddle her with another governess no matter what she said.

It was now not a question of Shall I have another governess? but Who will it be?

The Regent had made his decision. It was to be the Duchess of Leeds.

‘Her daughter,’ said the Queen, ‘will be a companion for Charlotte She is exactly fifteen – a little younger than my granddaughter, but I do not care for her to make friendships with older women. They can be most unsuitable.’

The Princess Charlotte sullenly received the news.

‘The Duchess of Leeds!’ she cried to Louisa. ‘She’s a foolish woman.’

Mercer, who was calling now and then at Warwick House as secretly as could be contrived, reminded the Princess that the Duchess, while a stupid woman, was also a meek one and that could be to her advantage.

‘You may well find that you can flout her as easily as you did Lady de Clifford. I am sure she will have no spirit whatsoever. She is certainly stupid – and a Tory. I do not think though that we need fear a great deal of trouble from her.’

‘They have suggested that her daughter, that silly little Catherine Osborne, might be a suitable companion for me. That’s an insult.’

‘You will ignore the child, of course.’

‘Of course. But what I will not have in my household, although they are trying to force her on me, is Lord Eldon’s daughter. My mother says I am being treated shamefully and should not endure it. And at least if I have to accept the Leeds woman I shall refuse that Scott girl.’