"There at least you vill be far from gossip. I vill write to your family and tell them to be kind to you."

"Your Highness is good."

"I vish I could help you more. I suppose he promised to marry you?"

"Yes, Madam."

"You are not the first to be deceived by empty promises. Your ... indiscretion vill be a lesson to you. Take it to heart but try to make a new life for yourself. Profit from your misfortune, my tear, and try to be happy in the new life you vill surely make for yourself."

Sophie sank to her knees and kissed the Princess's hand.

A few days later she left court; and it was not long afterwards when Molly Lepel, her marriage no longer a secret, left the Princess's service to start a new life in the country.

My Court will not be the same without them, thought Caroline. And even Mary Bellenden has emerged as a married woman.

But she soon ceased to think about the affairs of her maids of honour for the time came for her child to be born and this time to her great joy it was a healthy boy whom she called William Augustus; and when she held him in her arms she believed that her ill luck had changed. This child would be her very own and no one would attempt to take him from her.

She was right. From the time of the child's birth she was happier. She would have more children and then it would seem as though she had another little family all her own. The King showed that he did not find her company distasteful. He would often sit dourly listening when she talked, but he seemed to enjoy her conversation as much as he enjoyed any.

When she heard from Lady Mary Wordey Montague that in Turkey smallpox was rendered harmless by making a small wound and infecting it with pus from a smallpox sore she was very interested. Lady Mary wrote that she had allowed her own son to be inoculated; and when her doctor, Charles Maitland, came to England Caroline sent for him and asked him to tell her more.

There was an outcry, for nothing the Princess did could pass unnoticed. Lady Mary was counted an unnatural mother; the doctors decried the practice as against God's Will.

Caroline pondered the matter. She was constantly afraid of the smallpox which had killed her mother; every other person in the street was marked by it; she herself had escaped lightly, through great good fortune; she learned that seventy-two people out of every thousand died of it.

She longed to make her own children secure against it but dared not take any risk.

She tried to talk to the Prince about it, but he was not really interested.

"Imagine," she said, "the benefit to the nation ... if ve could vipe out this terrible scourge."

"It vould be goot... very goot "

He thinks of nothing but his own vanities, she thought a little contemptuously, a little indulgently. Strangely enough as the years passed she was discovering that she would not have had him otherwise.

At the King's reception one evening she had an opportunity of speaking to the King. George was there. The Duchesses of Kendal and Darlington inevitably were in attendance, listening to music while some played cards.

Mary Bellenden was present with her husband and as they came in the Prince scowled at her and shook his finger; then he turned his back. It might have been comic but he was really angry with her for preferring his bedchamber groom to himself. Caroline was glad though that he had not dismissed John Campbell and confined his display of pique to a shake of the finger and a turn of the back.

Caroline took her place next to the King and talked awhile to the Duchess of Kendal who, she secretly thought, grew uglier every day.

Then she broached the subject of inoculation and told the King of Mary Wortley Montague's experiences. The Prince scowled when he heard the name of Mary Wortley Montague because she had attracted him and refused to become his mistress. It was bad enough to have the beautiful Bellenden there with her husband, biu to hear Caroline refer to another who had refused him was most irritating. He was surprised that Caroline should be so inconsiderate; she was not usually so. Then he realized that she was on her old hobby horse inoculation, so he ceased to be interested.

"If I were sure," she was saying to the King, "I should like to have the children innoculated."

George nodded.

"There would have to be more experiments first. I have talked to Maitland."

"Who is this Maitland?"

"The doctor who inoculated Lady Mary's son."

The King nodded.

"I think we should try these experiments. Suppose we took prisoners from Newgate ... those condemned to die in any case. Would Your Majesty agree that might be a good idea?"

The King nodded. "It is a good idea," he said.

That was all she needed.

The next day she summoned Maitland and the experiment began.

To Caroline's delight it was entirely successful.

"But we must be sure," she told Maitland, and six charity children were inoculated with equal success.

Caroline summoned Sir Hans Sloane for discussions with Maitland. As he was favourably impressed she allowed Amelia and Caroline to be inoculated.

When this was successful, many hurried to be inoculated . It became the fashion to be so treated.

Caroline was delighted. The battle against the deadly killer had begun.

Little more than a year after the birth of William Augustus, Caroline's daughter Mary was born. This was great happiness. She now had two healthy children and the fact that the older ones were not entirely hers gave her less anguish. She had a second little family which was a consolation.

Occasionally she was uneasy about her daughters whom she was sure lacked the training she would have given them. Anne was very haughty and she believed very ambitious; Amelia showed signs of beauty and was more amiable than her sister; Caroline, her namesake and favourite, was quiet and delicate, her health a constant source of anxiety. They need their mother, thought the Princess uneasily and often. But there was nothing more to be done. As for Frederick—little Fritzchen— he was now nearly seventeen, a man who kept a mistress. It was so long since she had seen him and although she had pined for him in those first years of separation, now she hardly ever gave him a thought.

How grateful she was therefore to have her dear little William Augustus and Mary—her own, entirely her own.

She was able to invite to her court those men of letters who interested her; she was able to read their works and discuss them with their authors. That was a great pleasure. She enjoyed both Pope's Ihad and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and when she read Gulliver's Travels with its allusions to the political figures of the day—the Prince not excepted—she declared she must meet the author as soon as he arrived in London.

Life had certainly taken a happier turn.

The King: even condescended to tell her of the marriage project which his daughter, Sophia Dorothea, longed to put into practice: her daughter for Frederick, her son for Amelia. She admitted that the crown of Prussia would be a good proposition for Amelia and she had no objection to Frederick's marrying his cousin.

She thought of Sophia Dorothea, the gay young sister-in-law whom she had known during the first months of her marriage, and who had determined to marry the King of Prussia's heir ... her own beloved Sophia Charlotte's son. It had been a strange marriage for the King of Prussia had turned out to be a violent man; but Sophia Dorothea had spirit and in spite of the fact that there was violence between them, they had a lasting affection for each other.

She, Caroline, would, of course, have no say in the marriage of her children; the King would decide and she and George Augustus would accept his decision; but it was pleasant that he should condescend to discuss the matter with her.

She talked to the Prince about the proposal. His face grew purple at the thought of it.

"This I vill not haf," he said. "They are mad, that family. Their father is mad. I hate him."

"But their mother is your own sister."

"Vot is that? She have von husband who is a madman."

"His manners are strange, yes "

"And this I vill not haf."

"If the King decides we must accept."

"I vill not. She is my daughter. Frederick is my son. This double vedding I vill not haf. I hate the King of Prussia. Vonce he tried to marry you."

"That came to nothing."

"How happy I am that it did not." His blue eyes filled with tears. "Vot should I haf done vithout my Caroline, eh?"

"Doubtless they vould have found another von for you."

"That I vould not haf. It has been a happy marriage. I vould never love another as I love my Caroline."

She thought of him, waiting outside Henrietta's apartments watch in hand. She thought of his attempts with Mary Bellenden and Mary Wortley Montague. They were two unsuccessful ones; there had been many others which had succeeded.

"They are but mistresses," he would say. "You are the Princess and my vife."

He was like a child in so many ways; and the reason why he was so much against the double wedding was because at one time there had been a possibility of the King of Prussia's being a suitor for Caroline.

The Duchess of Darlington was pensive. She had heard that Wilhelmina, the daughter of the King of Prussia was a very clever and forceful woman. If she married Frederick he would come to England, for then he could no longer be kept away. Another clever \» oman at the Court I That would be too much. The cleverness of the Princess Caroline was a hindrance to so many of her plans; and although the King was supposed to be on bad terms with the Prince and Princess it was clear that even he was impressed by this cleverness.

No, definitely the Duchess did not want another clever woman at Court.

"I have heard," she told the King, "that Wilhelmina is so ugly that she is quite frightful to look at; and violent with it—so much so that she has epileptic fits."

The King was horrified. This was gossip, of course; but very often there was truth in rumour. They wanted no epilepsy in the family.

The Duchess of Kendal had been aloof from the matter until she had been offered money to support the scheme. She rarely interfered with matters of state knowing she owed her hold on the King to this very quality; but money could tempt her.

She did not try to persuade the King or even show any interest to him. She had become wiser over the years but she did write to the Queen of Prussia telling her of the rumours and suggesting she invite the King to Berlin so that he might see the Princess Wilhelmina for himself and prove them false.

This advice was taken by the Queen and as a result the King decided he would pay another visit to his beloved Hanover and call at Berlin on route.

George arrived in due course at Lutzenburg which had been renamed Charlottenburg after Sophia Charlotte and there was greeted by his daughter and son-in-law.

Almost immediately he wished that he had stayed away. Sophia Dorothea had grown so like her mother that it was a shock to come face to face with her after all this time. However, he was not one to betray his feelings and his dour expression scarcely changed.

Sophia Dorothea was excited; there was so much she wanted to know about George Augustus and Caroline. She had heard such stories of the quarrel and how Caroline had managed to become popular in England. But it was hopeless to expect interesting gossip from her father. All she could do was welcome him as well as she could manage; but even that wasn't easy for the King of Prussia was miserly in the extreme and grudged spending money on anything but his armies.

What a life I lead! thought Sophia Dorothea and inwardly grimaced; for in fact she did not hate it as much as it might have seemed natural for her to do. Frederick William was so violent at times that she thought he was verging on madness; her son and daughter were terrified of him; and so was she ... in a way, a rather exciting fear, like a child who begs for stories of horror even though she knows they will bring nightmares. Oh yes, life was certainly not dull with Frederick William— neither for her nor the children. They were used to their father's ungovernable rages and the punishment he seemed to enjoy giving them; they thought nothing of it when he kicked them or beat them with his own hands; he liked to lock them in their apartments and starve them and then he would gloat over the amount of money he was saving by not feeding them.