Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) (25 page)

‘He did act on board ship when he was in the Navy,’ Augustus put in. ‘They played
The Merry Wives of Windsor
and tipped the fat lieutenant who played Falstaff into a load of rubbish. Papa was always telling us about it’

It was so easy to picture it all – that happy-go-lucky unconventional family presided over by a Duke and an actress; and strangely enough she felt grateful to have been allowed to become a member of it. She never tired of hearing stories of the past. If she had been a fanciful woman she might have imagined the presence of Dorothy Jordan presiding over the house now, as benignly glad that Adelaide had come to Bushy House as Adelaide was to be there.

Once when Adelaide went up to the attics she saw a picture there of a lovely woman in a theatrical costume and she guessed at once who it was.

She studied it carefully, looking into the big brown eyes that seemed to speak to her. When she went into the gardens she found Augustus there playing with his dog.

‘There is a picture in the attic,’ she said. ‘It’s rather lovely. I wondered about it.’

‘I expect it’s one of Mamma. People did paint her quite a lot.’

‘Will you come to the attic and tell me if it is.’

Augustus expressed himself willing and they went up together.

‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘that is Mamma. It used to hang over the fireplace in the dining-room. Every day when we came in I used to say “Good morning, Mamma”. It was nice when she was playing somewhere and wasn’t at home.’

‘When was it taken down?’

‘When you were coming, of course. Papa said you wouldn’t want to see our Mamma there. So it was taken down and put up in the attic. I remember the day they did it.’

‘And what did you think then?’

‘Well, I was a little sad because after Mamma went I used to think that she was still there. You see what I mean.’

‘I do see,’ said Adelaide.

William came into the dining-room and stared at the picture hanging in its old place over the fireplace. For the moment he thought he was dreaming. He remembered the day it had been brought home and hung there and how the family had all congregated to admire and criticize it; and how he had made Dorothy stand just beneath it. ‘It’s not quite like you, Mamma,’ one of the children had said, ‘It’s too … quiet. It’s like a dead you.’

He often remembered that and told people of it; he had bored people with a repetition of his children’s sayings.

He sent for the chief footman.

‘Who hung that picture there?’ he demanded.

‘Your Highness, I did.’

William’s face was suddenly purple with rage. ‘How … how dared you? On whose orders?’

The footman inclined his head almost proudly; and he replied: ‘It was on the Duchess’s orders, Your Highness.’

‘The Duchess’s orders!’ Then he said: ‘Oh … I see.’

He could not wait to find her. She was in the gardens with Augustus and Amelia. He did not wish to speak to her of the picture when she was with the children; and it was not until later that they were alone together in that very room in which it hung that she herself explained.

‘I asked them to bring it from the attic and hang it there.’

‘But you know who it is!’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the children’s mother. Augustus told me. They love that picture.’

‘It shall be taken down. We will have a portrait of you hung in its place.’

‘I want you to follow my wishes over this,’ she said. ‘I want that picture to remain.’

‘I don’t understand you.’

She laid her hand gently on his arm. ‘You will … in time,’ she said.

‘But you can’t want her picture there … in this room which we use so much.’

She nodded. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘she was a most unusual woman, a great woman. And she is the mother of the children. They wish it there … and so do I.’

‘
You
are their mother now,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘I can only take the place of the mother they have lost if they need me and it shall be my pleasure to be that.
She
is their true mother. They will never forget it, nor must we wish them to. So … the picture will hang in its old place?’

He took her hands and kissed them. ‘You are a wonderful wife to me, Adelaide,’ he said. ‘I trust I may deserve you.’

There was no secret now of the fact that Adelaide was pregnant. The Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge could no longer feel they were in the running while the ‘plump little partridge’ was flourishing in Kensington Palace. But what happened at Bushy was of the utmost importance to the Duchess of Kent.

She could not bear it, she told Fräulein Lehzen, if anything should happen to keep Drina from the throne. She and the Duke had believed so whole-heartedly in the prophecy; and one had already come true. Two deaths in the family, it had said; and they had come, one fast following the other.

Fräulein Lehzen declared that the Duchess of Clarence would never have a healthy child. She knew it. She had a feeling for these things. It was going to be Queen Alexandrina. She felt it in her bones.

‘How I hope and trust you are right, dear Lehzen,’ sighed the Duchess. ‘But we must be watchful. I want to know any news that comes from Bushy. The Duchess is a good woman. I feel for her. She longs to be a mother. It is so sad that if she realized her wish it could be so damaging to our little darling.’

‘It is not like Your Highness to anticipate trouble,’ said Fräulein Lehzen.

‘She has already lost two. Oh dear, and I could quite like the woman if she did not threaten Drina.’

In her cradle Drina slept peacefully, little dreaming that her greatness was menaced.

On a hot June evening of that year a carriage drove into London. In it sat a plump woman with short neck and legs, her face daubed with rouge and white lead, her eyebrows painted deep black and a hat adorned with feathers set on her black curly wig. She was dressed in purple mourning for the late King.

Queen Caroline had returned to England.

‘Long live the Queen,’ shouted the people; and they laughed and whispered together. Now there would be some fun. Elegant George must be fuming with rage because this painted woman – no longer young – had, in spite of all the stories that had been circulating about her, come back to England to share the throne with him.

Caroline put her head out of the carriage window to wave her greetings. ‘God bless you, good people.’

‘God bless you, Queen Caroline,’ was the reply.

Caroline settled herself against the upholstery. She was smiling
complacently. She had come back to take her stand against the enemy.

‘There’ll be a coronation,’ she had said, ‘and it’s only right that the Queen should be crowned with the King.’

The King was incensed. He wanted to take to his bed and shut everyone out. He wanted to forget the world which contained Caroline.

She had been a menace to his peace ever since he had first seen her. Oh God, he thought, shall I ever forget Malmesbury presenting her to me – that low vulgar woman in that hideous white dress, the daubed face, that unwashed odour. That they could have done
that
to me!

‘I must be rid of her. I must, I must, I must,’ he cried hysterically to Lord Castlereagh, his foreign secretary.

‘Your Majesty, there should be enough evidence to rid you of her.’

‘If those who should have served me have done their duty there will be.’

‘I think you will find that they have done that, Your Majesty.’

‘This man Bergami … he was her lover. If we had proof of this I could divorce her immediately.’

‘There will be witnesses, Sir. We are bringing them over here in readiness.’

‘And I suppose Brougham is with her?’

‘He’s a good lawyer, Sir, but he can’t stand out against the truth.’

‘I should think a reasonable court would only have to look at her to know her guilty.’

‘It will be a mighty scandal, Sir. She has powerful supporters and many of the people are with her.’

‘They would be … just to plague me. Oh God, she is so clearly guilty. She was before with that Willie Austin of hers. He’s her child, I’ll swear it. They say he is repulsive enough to be.’

Castlereagh was uneasy. The Queen was going to be put on trial for adultery and such a case was almost certain to become political. The Tories would stand with the King, the Whigs with the Queen, and one of the most capable lawyers in the country
was Brougham who had long ago established himself as the Queen’s adviser.

As the weeks passed there was no other topic of conversation throughout the country than the impending trial of Queen Caroline. Before the arrival of the Queen it had been planned that the coronation should take place on the first day of August; quite clearly this would have to be postponed for how could such an event take place when it was not certain whether the Queen, who should take such an important part in it, was on the point of being divorced from the King?

The stands which had been set up in the streets for the spectators of the procession to and from the Abbey, had to be taken down; the people who always enjoyed such ceremonies were not entirely disappointed for the trial was even more of a peep show than a coronation.

They formed themselves into factions – for and against.

‘Are you for George or Caroline?’ was a constant question, sometimes asked good-humouredly; but quite often there were quarrels which ended in fights and even riots.

When the Queen rode out, which she liked to do wearing the most flamboyant clothes, her carriage would be followed by groups of cheering people, who assured her that they were for her. It was obvious who was the more popular of the antagonists. The cartoons and lampoons against the King increased; there were some ridiculing the Queen but that was to be expected.

In Bushy, taking the utmost care not to exert herself, Adelaide heard what was happening and shuddered. She could not help thinking of the days when war had come to Saxe-Meiningen and she and Ida had made bandages for the wounded.

‘Surely a controversy such as this could result in civil war,’ she said to William.

William shrugged off such a suggestion. ‘Not here,’ he replied. ‘Not here.’

‘I shall never forget when the armies came to Meiningen. All was peaceful before and we would have said: “It could not happen here.” But they came and ravaged the land. You can imagine what a town is like when an army has passed through it – hungry
for food and excitement. It frightens me … this new feeling in the streets.’

‘No. This is a battle between the King and Queen.’

‘But people take sides. There are riots. Riots can become … worse. I remember hearing of what happened in France. That was not so long ago.’

‘Don’t compare us with the French,’ said William almost fiercely.

But William, she had long since learned, was not the most discerning of men; and she was disturbed.

He became tender. ‘Nothing for you to worry your head about.’ He patted her stomach. ‘All you must concern yourself with is the little one, eh?’

Yes, she thought fiercely, whatever happens, all must be well with the little one.

In Parliament the Bill of Pains and Penalties was introduced. This was to deprive Caroline of the ‘title, prerogatives, rights, privileges and pretensions of Queen Consort and to dissolve the marriage between herself and the King’. The reason for this was her immoral conduct and a court was set up that she might stand on trial against a charge of adultery with an Italian, Bartolomeo Bergami, who had been the majordomo of her household.

Rarely in the history of any British royal family had there been such a scandal. The King’s brothers had been adepts at providing salacious material and two of them had once stood on trial, the Duke of York on suspicion of selling commissions in the Army through his mistress Mary Anne Clarke, and the Duke of Cumberland on suspicion of having murdered his valet. Both of these were scandalous; but for a King – whose own life was scarcely one of moral rectitude – to bring a public charge of adultery with an Italian servant against his Queen, was surely the most scandalous of all.

The King was determined to have his divorce; and the Queen was determined that he should not. Behind both stood some of the ablest men in the country; it was going to be a tremendous battle.

The King did not appear in public. He was overcome with
humiliation and anger; but the Queen could not resist showing herself to the people. She rode out in her feathered hats and tastelessly coloured garments waving to all, accepting their acclamation, glorying in the discomfort she caused the King; confident that she was going to win her case and that adultery could not be proved against her.

The trial began and Caroline drove to the House of Lords to appear before her judges; and one by one members of her household who had been with her during her travels came forward to give evidence for or against her. It was not the first time the King had ordered an enquiry into her behaviour; years ago there had been the ‘Delicate Investigation’ which had attempted to discover whether or not Willie Austin was her illegitimate child. She had won then; she was confident that she would win now.

Lawyer Brougham was a genius. Deftly he dismissed the witnesses for the prosecution and with a dexterity which was truly marvellous he turned everything to the Queen’s advantage.

Not only all over England but throughout the world the case against the Queen of England was being discussed.

It seemed incredible that Caroline could not be proved guilty. She had her enemies, but she also had her friends, and the great unpopularity of the King undoubtedly worked against him. Adelaide was not the only one who feared the unrest in the capital which was being aroused by what was called the King’s ill-treatment of his wife.

The Bill of Pains and Penalties was finally passed in the Lords but the majority was the small one of nine. The Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was uneasy. On the second reading of the bill the majority in favour had been twenty-eight; such a big drop on the third reading showed clearly that the Bill was losing what little support it originally had.

It was a defeat for the King but only stalemate for Caroline. What did she care? Many people might believe her an adulteress, but while adultery could not be proved the King would not get his divorce and she was still Queen of England.