Jean Plaidy - Victoria in the Wings

He must succeed. He was becoming known as the Prince who could not find a wife. It was a situation beloved of the cartoonists and naturally they made the most of it.

He engaged the poet Southey to write poems for him to send to the Danish princess but before he could dispatch them she refused the match.

Another chortle of glee from the press! Poor Clarence! And whenever he appeared in the cartoons – which was with distressing frequency – Dorothy Jordan was there in the background with the ten FitzClarence children clinging to her skirts.

What had William, Duke of Clarence, to offer? Nothing but a vague possibility of becoming King of England, having two brothers to come before him. He was past fifty and no longer a Prince Charming, if he ever had been, was somewhat rough in the speech and manners which he had acquired at sea, and he was overburdened by debts. ‘Small wonder,’ said the press, ‘that when William offers the ladies decline.’ Worst of all they recalled Dorothy. He had deserted her after twenty years; she had died in poverty in France; she was buried in an unknown grave. Not a very good recommendation for Husband William, for he had been husband to Dorothy Jordan in all but name.

There had been a distressing crop of rumours about her.

Her eldest daughter by Richard Daly, who had been a source of trouble to Dorothy and William all her life, declared that she had seen her mother in the Strand, and that she had been so startled for some seconds that she had allowed her to pass. When she had sought to follow her, Dorothy had disappeared.

The theatre critic, James Boaden, who had been a great friend of Dorothy, declared he saw her looking in a bookshop in Piccadilly. He was certain it was Dorothy because of the strange way she handled the eyeglass she had invariably used to aid her short sight. Like Dorothy’s daughter he had been too startled by the vision of one whom he believed to be dead to speak for a moment; and the vision lowered a thick veil over her face and hurried away.

This gave rise to two rumours: Dorothy Jordan was not dead but had come back to London from which she had fled to avoid a debtor’s prison. Dorothy Jordan, unable to rest in her grave, had come back to haunt the man who had treated her so badly.

William declared he did not believe either of them. Fanny Alsop, Dorothy’s daughter, had always hated him and would tell any tale that might harm him. As for Boaden, he had been mistaken. The whole thing was a fabrication.

But was it one of the reasons why no one seemed anxious to become his wife in spite of a promise – a vague one it had to be admitted – of a crown?

He had, however, great hopes of Miss Wykeham. In his pocket he carried Southey’s poem to the Princess Anne of Denmark which a little adjustment had made applicable to Miss Wykeham.

He would forget past failures and concentrate on success.

He joined George at the Pavilion, where he was staying with their sister Mary. George embraced him with great affection.

‘So you have come, William, to be with me in my sorrow.’

George always acted so well that one immediately took one’s part in whatever drama was being enacted. Mary, who was now Duchess of Gloucester, wept with George for the loss of his daughter; and as they talked of Charlotte William could not recognize in his niece the young woman whom death had endowed with qualities she had never possessed – or at least her father had not admitted she possessed – in life.

William was thinking of his wooing. A sailor learned to be practical. But even he realized that this was not the moment to speak to his brother and sister of his intentions.

But Miss Wykeham was staying in her house at Brighton, for like most of the rich and fashionable she had a house there; and William took the first opportunity to escape from the gloom of the Pavilion in mourning to Miss Wykeham’s house.

She received him a little archly. She was fully aware of why he had come. He needed a bride and Miss Wykeham – who was no fool – knew that the death of the Princess made the need imperative and, from her point of view, the match more desirable.

‘How good of you to call.’

‘Oh, I had a purpose.’

He was very lacking in the graces of polite society. Was it due to all those years of bourgeois existence with the easy-to-please Dorothy Jordan? wondered Miss Wykeham.

‘A purpose? Now I wonder what that could be.’

She fluttered her eyes at him. She had been told they were very fine. As fine as her fortune? she had wondered, for she was a somewhat cynical young woman.

‘You shall see. Here read this. Or would you like me to read it to you?’

‘You read it to me. But pray first be seated.’

She led him to a couch and they sat down together while he read Southey’s poem to the Princess Anne of Denmark.

‘What flattering words. Did I really inspire them?’

‘No one but you, my dear Miss Wykeham. And you must know why.’

‘In case I have misunderstood, don’t you think you should explain?’

‘It’s as simple as this,’ he said. And he repeated the speech he had learned by heart. ‘Dear Miss Wykeham I have not a farthing to my name, but if you would like to be a Duchess and perhaps a Queen, I should have great pleasure in arranging it.’

She laughed. Plain Miss would certainly like to be a Duchess; she would like even better to be a Queen. An exciting prospect.

‘That is what is called a rough sailor’s wooing, I suppose,’ she said.

‘You can call it that, but I mean every word of it. Well, what’s the answer?’

‘Please arrange it,’ she said.

He laughed with her. He kissed her. She was young, she was not unhandsome; she was very rich, and at last he had found a woman to accept him.

THERE COULD NOT have been a more domesticated couple than the Duke of Kent and Madame de St Laurent.

It had been said that the Royal Marriage Act countenanced adultery and fornication in the royal family. An Act which forbade the sons and daughters of the King to marry without royal consent until the age of twenty-five and after that without the consent of the Parliament made a choice necessary; princes and princesses must either marry the partner chosen for them or not at all; and if no partner was offered they must either live in celibacy or in sin.

What could men – lusty Hanoverians at that – be expected to do?

If they were young and romantic they married secretly and morganatically as the Prince of Wales had married Mrs Fitzherbert, or openly as Augustus Duke of Sussex had married Lady Augusta Murray. The Fitzherbert marriage had caused endless conflict and few people were sure whether or not it had taken place; it was one of the reasons for the unpopularity of the Regent at this time; and had caused suffering and humiliation to Mrs Fitzherbert. As for Augustus, when he had married the Lady Augusta the King and Queen had refused to acknowledge the marriage and there had been a case to decide whether or not the marriage was legal, although it had been celebrated before an English priest in Italy and later in St George’s, Hanover Square. The verdict, however, was that although the Duke of Sussex might have been married in the eyes of the Church this was no true marriage in the eyes of the State because it flouted the Royal Marriage Act which was a law of the land. So Sussex and his Augusta set up house together, supported by his brothers who deplored the Act as much as he did. Sussex had since left her as the Regent had left Mrs Fitzherbert, but both believed that if life had been made less difficult for them, if the women they looked upon as their wives had been able to share their social as well as their private lives, they would have been happily married to this day.

The Duke of Kent, the serious military man, cared passionately for his career; twenty years before he had met in Canada and fallen in love with Mademoiselle Alphonsine Thérèse Bernardine Julie de Montgenet, a beautiful young refugee from the French revolution.

He would have married her but he knew that the King would never have given his consent to his marriage with any but a princess – preferably German and certainly Protestant – of his choosing. So they too set up house together, and had lived a life of great happiness and devotion to each other for more than twenty-five years.

Edward Duke of Kent was a martinet in the Army; he was a man without humour and in every way different from his brother the Prince Regent. He had suffered acutely when he had been recalled from the Governorship of Gibraltar where his stern methods had not been appreciated; he had been jealous of the Duke of York’s Command of the Army, considering him to be but an indifferent soldier; it was said he had played some part in bringing the Mary Anne Clarke scandal to light and had hoped – in vain – to become Commander-in-Chief of the Army when York was forced to resign. But through all his troubles Julie, who had taken the name of Madame de St Laurent after the St Lawrence River on whose banks they had met, had remained with him, to comfort him, to love him, to nurse him when he was sick and to restore his belief in himself when he felt himself to be unappreciated and overlooked.

When they had come to England the Regent with his usual charm and sympathy had received Julie as though she were the Duchess of Kent; and they had bought Castle Hill Lodge at Ealing from Maria Fitzherbert who, being a Catholic like Julie, was drawn to her; they acquired a house in Knightsbridge for Julie, and Edward had his apartments in Kensington Palace. These establishments were costly to keep up and Edward, like all his brothers, was soon deeply in debt.