The Third George: (Georgian Series) (27 page)

‘You must tell me,’ she urged and added: ‘If it will help you.’

He seemed to consider this. His brow was wrinkled, his eyes wild.

Then he spoke a little incoherently: ‘Perhaps I should tell. Better. Charlotte, oh, Charlotte. It was wrong. It was wicked. I never should …’

She waited in breathless anxiety. What was the secret of Hannah Lightfoot? She must know.

‘George,’ she said, ‘perhaps you should lie down.’

‘I feel dizzy,’ he said. ‘I can scarcely stand.’

She took him to the bedchamber and he lay down while she sat beside the bed holding his hand.

‘Charlotte, you are a good wife … a good queen.’

‘I want to be everything you wish me to be, George.’

‘All these years. What did Hannah
think
…?’

And then he was telling the story, somewhat incoherently, it was true, but she saw him as a young boy of thirteen passing through St James’s Market and being aware of the beautiful Quaker sitting in the window of the linen draper’s shop.

‘The people had gathered to see us … my grandfather, my mother, myself … we were all going to the theatre; and the linen draper had taken the bales of linen from the window that his family might watch the procession pass by. Hannah told me that … afterwards.’

‘Yes, George.’

‘She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.’

Charlotte winced, but the pressure of his hot fingers on her hand reminded her that however plain she was, he needed her; and he trusted her enough to confide in her.

‘So we met. It was arranged for us and I loved her and she bore my children.’

‘Children, George? Where are they?’

‘Being well cared for. I am assured of this, but I do not see them now. They are growing too old. It would not be safe. But I know they are well cared for. That is taken good care of.’

There was silence while Charlotte thought of her little nursery and compared it with that of another presided over by a woman … the most beautiful he had ever seen, a woman who merely had to sit in a shop window to make him fall in love with her and risk all sorts of danger to be with her. Very different that must have been from marrying a plain princess who had been chosen for him.

But it was over. It was of the past and now he was king with a queen and two sons and another child on the way.

She told him this gently.

‘Yes, it is over, but it haunts me, Charlotte. I think of her … What must she have thought of me … for allowing it …? And in my heart I knew she wasn’t dead.’

She listened to the incoherent fantastic story of how he had gone to the house … their house in Islington … and found that she was no longer there. She and the children had disappeared. The story they had told him was that she had died and been
buried and the children were being taken care of.

‘They showed me her grave, Charlotte. But it had another name over it. They cheated me. They told me she was dead … and I knew in my heart that she was not. It was a ridiculous story. They had buried her under another name to avoid scandal, they said. I should have asked questions, but I didn’t, Charlotte … because I knew in my heart … And I understood what it would mean. I was the King and I had married the linen draper’s niece.’

‘Married!’ she cried aghast.

He nodded. ‘We went through a form of marriage. She was already married to Isaac Axford, but she said that was no true marriage and he thought so too for he had married again. It was never consummated. She ran away after the ceremony … ran away to me.’

‘Married!’ repeated Charlotte.

‘It satisfied her. She thought she was near death. It was after the child was born … the last one … and she feared the weight of sin. So I married her … and that made her happier. She was no longer afraid to die.’

He had closed his eyes; the telling had exhausted him mentally and physically.

He seemed to sleep and she sat by his bed, thinking: ‘Married! So they went through a form of marriage!’

*

Charlotte could not sleep for thinking of the strange confession her husband had made to her. When she had tried to broach the subject again he had looked at her coldly as though he did not know what she was talking about. A great fear came to her then. Was he pretending that he did not know or had he really been unaware of what he had said to her?

He was acting very strangely. There were times when he seemed bemused. He had changed in the last weeks. Could it be the result of the information he had received about Hannah Lightfoot’s death? Who had told him? She imagined a letter arriving from Hannah herself, begging him to look after their children as she was dying. Was that not what any mother would do?

And George had actually gone through a ceremony of marriage with Hannah Lightfoot. So that wedding ceremony between
herself and George in the Chapel Royal performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury was not the first George had undergone.

She thought she felt the child move within her and with that a faintness came to her, for with the movement of the child had come a thought. If George had been married before and that marriage of his had been legal, then he was not married to her, Charlotte; and little George and Fred were illegitimate and so was the child she carried in her womb.

She clutched the table. No, she thought. It is impossible. That could not be true … not of the Queen of England.

But the doubt persisted. It haunted her. It seemed to her that everywhere she went Hannah Lightfoot was mocking her. ‘I was his true wife. Some child hidden away somewhere in the country is the true King of England, not your little George whom they call the Prince of Wales.’

It was unbearable. She could not endure it. She, Charlotte, Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, brought to England to be the King’s concubine, her children bastards. Oh, no! It was a nightmare. Yet he had told her of that marriage.

My God, she thought, I shall never be safe. My children will never be safe. In the years to come some young man could present himself to the Government, to the Archbishop, and say: ‘I am the true King of England.’

There would be documents …

She must find out.

She tried to talk to George.

‘You must tell me the truth. We cannot let this matter rest.’

‘Hannah is dead,’ he said. ‘I have evidence of that now. She was not before, but she is dead now.’

‘But you were married to her.’

‘It was not a true marriage.’

‘Why not? Why not?’

‘She was married before.’

‘But she thought that was not a true marriage.’

‘It was at a Marriage Mill which was illegal.’

‘Then …’

‘It was declared illegal, but the law had not been entered in the statute book at that time. It was a few months later. That was why she thought it was illegal.’

‘It frightens me.’

‘Don’t think of it. Don’t speak of it.’

‘But what if it were a true marriage? Then I am not your wife. What of our sons … What of them? What if they say that George, the Prince of Wales, is a bastard?’

‘Stop,’ cried the King. ‘It is driving me mad.’

*

And so it seemed. His doctors were anxious. The rash had broken out on his chest and he had a fever. They purged him and he was a little better.

Charlotte was hollow-eyed too.

The people of the Court said: ‘The Queen is anxious about the King. He certainly seems to have a strange illness.’

Charlotte thought, we must do something. If we were not truly married before then we must be married now. But how? If they announced that they would be married again there would be immediate gossip and scandal. Those who had wondered about the Hannah Lightfoot story would begin to speak of it as a fact. Nothing could be more dangerous.

Charlotte could not think clearly if the King was incapable of doing so.

The name of Hannah Lightfoot must never be mentioned at Court if she could help it. Those children must never know who their father was. A great wrong might have been done to Hannah and her children, and Charlotte and hers, but silence was the best way to right it.

She must speak to George. She must discover more; she must find a way out of this difficulty if not for her own sake for that of those two boys in her nursery and the one who would be born later this year.

Alone in their bedroom she said to him, ‘I must talk of this. I fear it upsets you, but I have our children to think of.’

George was mute, his features set in lines of abject melancholy.

‘Who performed the ceremony when you married Hannah Lightfoot?’

‘Dr Wilmot,’ he said.

‘Dr Wilmot!’ The name was not unfamiliar. He had been one of the Court chaplains. She must discover more of this man.

While she pondered this an idea came to her. What if she
arranged an entertainment … a court entertainment and there was a masque in which two people were married. It could seem like a mock ceremony, but they could say the necessary words. Everything that was essential could be performed. And the two chief players would be the King and Queen.

It was fantastic; but then so was the whole story.

A masque … when neither she nor the King cared for masques. Why not a quiet ceremony in the chapel at Kew? No. Quiet ceremonies had a way of being discovered. That would make it too serious. A masque was the idea with everyone looking on … and herself and the King and the priest … disguised in a domino.

The idea was forming shape. It is the only way, she thought.

Dr Wilmot should be the priest. Whom else could she trust? He knew of the marriage so therefore there would be no one else in the secret.

And then she could be sure that she was married to the King, if only at this late date. And if George and Fred were bastards, the new child would not be.

*

‘A
fête
. A Court masque!’ The words were whispered in astonishment. ‘The Queen is being gay at last. Who would have believed it … and another little one on the way!’

The Queen had announced that she and the King were devising a spectacle in which they were going to play a prominent part. The theme would be the glorification of marriage.

‘That sounds a little more like them,’ grinned Elizabeth Chudleigh to the frivolous Marchioness. ‘I’ll swear there’ll be prayers and hymns of praise. And then we shall all have to declare ourselves ready to follow the good example of conjugal bliss set by their Majesties.’

Still, a
fête
was a
fête
and everyone agreed that any
fête
was better than none at all.

The King had been keeping to his apartments lately and was seeing very little of people, even his ministers. They found him abstracted and his behaviour a little odd.

The Princess Dowager told Lord Bute when he came to her quietly in a closed carriage that she was anxious about George, who was behaving strangely. She was sure this absurd
fête
was
Charlotte’s idea and that they would have to be even more watchful of her.

‘She is pregnant,’ Bute reminded the Princess, ‘and pregnant women get odd fancies.’

The Princess grunted. ‘We’ll be watchful,’ she said. ‘Madam Charlotte could get out of hand.’

On the evening of the
fête
there was a banquet and dancing; and a troupe of dancers dressed as brides and their grooms performed before the company. The highlight of the evening was when the King and Queen standing on a dais apart from the rest of the company actually went through a form of marriage with one of the company disguised as a priest.

There was some surprise that this was considered in good taste since the words of the marriage ceremony were actually spoken.

‘Poor George,’ was the comment, ‘he has no humour at all if he thinks this is the way to amuse his guests. As for Charlotte, she’s as bad … or even worse. A dull pair.’

The King and Queen sat apart from their guests both looking solemn.

Elizabeth Chudleigh commented: ‘Now if we had the old putting-the-pair-to-bed ceremony that would enliven things a little.’

But of course there were no such frivolities at the Court of George and Charlotte.

The odd thing was that they should have thought to entertain the company by a mock marriage between the most stolidly married couple in the kingdom.

The company danced and feasted again and forgot the oddities of the King and Queen.

And Charlotte at least felt comforted by that evening’s entertainment.

*

When a few days later Mr George Grenville called on the King he found George sitting at his desk, his head in his hand, and he refused to look up when Grenville entered.

‘Your Majesty …’ began Grenville; but still the King sat there.

‘Is anything wrong?

George lowered his hands; his face was very red; and suddenly he burst into tears.

‘Your Majesty is ill.’

George did not deny it.

Grenville immediately sent for the King’s doctors.

*

The doctors were in consultation with Grenville and a few of the King’s top ministers.

‘What ails him?’ asked Grenville.

‘His mind seems to be affected. He does not speak coherently; he is overcome by some sort of melancholy, some unnatural fear of disaster.’

‘Good God,’ cried Grenville. ‘You don’t mean he’s mad.’

‘He is decidedly disturbed,’ said Sir William Duncan, one of the chief doctors.

‘This is disaster. The Prince of Wales is not yet three. It will mean a Regency.’

‘Come, sir. You go too fast. He has a violent chill, and there is a rash on his chest. This may be the delirium of passing fever.’

Grenville looked relieved. ‘But this must be kept a secret until we are sure.’

The doctors agreed with this; and Grenville said that either the Queen or the Princess Dowager should be informed, and perhaps they should choose the Princess Dowager as the Queen was pregnant.

*

The Princess was stunned.

‘This is terrible,’ she cried. ‘George … deranged … and the Prince not yet three years old. Leave me. I will see you later. I must think about this.’

And as soon as she was alone she sent an urgent message to Lord Bute.