Виктория Холт - Queen in waiting

If George Augustus hated Walpole he did not hate Walpole's wife. Rumour was that she was for a time his mistress and as she was notorious for the fact that she took lover after lover while her husband went his own way, it seemed possible.

And so a few years slipped by and although the King grew older he remained in excellent health and when Anne Brett, a very handsome, dark-haired young woman came to court he showed marked interest in her.

Caroline, aware of this, wondered whether the King could live for another ten or fifteen years. Would her children ever be returned to her? Was Frederick going to be kept in Hanover for the rest of the King's life? Would the crown never be her husband's? Would she never know the power for which ever since her marriage she had been preparing herself?

The King was approaching his sixty-sixth year. Was he going to outlive them all?

George was pleased with life. He had become reconciled to England; he was devoted to his two German mistresses, particularly the Duchess of Kendal; she was constantly with him and was to him as a wife. At the same time Anne Brett excited him and he would enjoy his association with her as wholeheartedly as he had indulged in such affairs at the age of eighteen.

He too had begun to think he was immortal.

Anne was no Ermengarda. She made demands; but she was so young and he was perhaps ready nowadays to do a little more courting than he had been in his youth.

She amused him; she delighted him; she was as beautiful as the Countess von Platen and that made a pleasant change from the Duchesses of Kendal and Darlington.

Then his content was disturbed—and for the strangest reason. He should have been pleased if anything—at least indifferent, but he was surprised to find he was not.

A messenger arrived from Hanover with news that his wife Sophia Dorothea had died in her prison at Ahlden after thirty two years of that captivity to which her husband had condemned her.

George shut himself in his apartment. Why should he care?

She deserved it, he said. She betrayed me with Konigsmarck.

And for some strange reason the past became clear again; he remembered the quarrels when she had accused him of infidelity. Ermengarda had been the cause of the quarrel, and she was still with him, his dear Duchess of Kendal.

Then Sophia Dorothea had taken her lover, been discovered, her lover mysteriously murdered, herself made a prisoner for life ... the prisoner of her husband.

How she must have hated him, living out her lonely life in Ahlden, calling herself Queen of England, a country she would never see—for he had condemned her to life imprisonment!

She had died cursing him. He did not want to know more. It was better not.

He made up his mind there should be a brief announcement —that was all. And life should go on as though nothing had happened.

Nor had it. She had been nothing to him for years. And now she was dead.

"My mother is dead," said George Augustus.

Caroline thought of Sophia Dorothea of whom she had heard so much during her first years in Hanover, although she had never seen her. She remembered the shadow which had seemed to hang over the old Leine Schloss; she recalled vividly the spot where it was said Konigsmarck, creeping from his mistress's rooms, had been set upon and murdered.

Poor Sophia Dorothea, the victim of the King's vindictiveness even as she was!

"The Court must go into mourning," she said.

The King came into her apartment, his eyes bulging, his jaw trembling. Never before had she seen him moved in this way.

"What is this I hear?" he demanded. "The Court in mourning? Why?"

"For the death of the Prince's mother."

"She is... nothing. There will be no mourning. Do you hear me. I said no mourning."

"If it is Your Majesty's command "

"It is an order. No mourning, I say. No mourning." She bowed her head. "There shall be no mourning." He left her. No, certainly she had never seen him so disturbed.

He looked ten years older than he had before the news had come.

That night the King went to the theatre, with more pomp than usual. On one side of him was the Duchess of Kendal, on the other the Duchess of Darlington.

He gave an impression of enjoying the show more than usual.

Caroline, who had been ordered to go to the theatre with the Prince at the same time, watched him more than the play.

He is too eager, she thought. And he has aged. Can it really be that he suffers remorse, or is it :hat he is more afraid of the dead than of the living?

George could not shut himself away from rumour. Sophia Dorothea had cursed him when she was dying. Those who had been at her bedside had heard it distinctly. She had been half conscious but she had talked of him. He would not survive her a year, she had prophesied; he would be called to face her at the judgement seat when he would have to answer for what he had done to her.

The King heard the prophecies and laughed at them. Anne Brett had become his mistress after he had given her fine apartments in St. James's Palace and a good pension, but she wanted a title too.

He had explained that that was a matter which took some time to arrange but it should be hers in due course.

The young woman strutted about the Court giving herself airs as none of the other mistresses had dared do. The Duchess of Kendal was annoyed that another woman should take up so much of the King's time, and some said that to placate her the King married her—but there was no proof of this. However, in spite of his infatuation for Anne Brett, he still did not waver in his devotion to Ermengarda. Perhaps when they were alone together they talked of those early days when his devotion to her had called forth the protests of his wife—for that had been the beginning of the trouble. Ermengarda had had no hand in the condemnation of Sophia Dorothea but because she was in some way involved he found even greater comfort in her company.

But this, of course, he would not admit. Sophia Dorothea was dead—and that was the end of an episode which over the years had become insignificant.

And the time came for him to pay another visit to Hanover. He was going to remonstrate with his daughter, the Queen of Prussia, because she had ordered the deepest mourning at her court for her mother. If she wanted the double marriage this was not the way to get it.

He must go to Hanover; he must show the world—and perhaps himself—that he cared nothing for the death-bed prophecies of the woman whose life he had ruined when he had condemned her to life imprisonment.

It was on a June day, about seven months after the death of Sophia Dorothea, that he set out on his journey.

The crossing was a bad one and Ermengarda always had suffered from sea sickeness.

"You must rest for a day or so at the Hague," said the King. "You can follow me when you have recovered."

She agreed that she must do this and he went on alone with his escort, which included Lord Townsend, and on the borders of Holland and Germany stopped at the mansion of a Count Twittle who was waiting to receive the royal party. Supper was waiting for them, a meal which the King thoroughly enjoyed.

The Count said that his mansion was at the King's disposal for as long as he should need it and Townsend suggested that they should rest there at Delden for a few days which would enable the King to recover from the journey and the Duchess of Kendal to join them.

But the King would not wait; he would not even stay the night. The horses must be saddled, he said, and they would continue their journey to Osnabruck where his brother would be waiting to welcome him.

As the King stepped into his coach he saw a letter lying on the seat. He picked it up; he did not know the handwriting and yet there was something familiar about it.

"Ride on," he ordered; and as his coach rattled out of Delden he read the letter.

His hands began to shake so that he could scarcely hold the letter. As soon as he began to read it he knew why the handwriting had seemed familiar. He had not seen it for years because it was hers.

She was ill, she wrote; she would soon die. But he need not think that he would live much longer than she had. He had ruined her life; he had condemned her to lonely exile. What life did he think she had had ... she who should have shared the throne of England, she who was the true Queen? But his time would come. He should not live long to survive her. As soon as he heard of her death ... he should prepare for his own.

The King lay back in his seat; his heart was beating so fast that it shocked him; a red mist swam before his eyes.

Townsend beside him spoke but the King could not hear his voice clearly.

"Your Majesty ..."

"Drive to Osnabruck ," he whispered. "I must get to Osnabruck."

"Your Majesty is ill. We will drive back to Delden "

"To Osnabruck ," said the King.

"I am afraid for His Majesty..." began Townsend. "We need doctors..."

"To Osnabruck ..." muttered George.

"You had better do as the King commands," said Townsend. "Drive with all speed to Osnabruck."

George lay back in the coach. His eyes were glazed; but his lips moved now and then. "To Osnabruck. To Osnabruck," he whispered.

And by the time his coach reached Osnabruck King George I was dead.

In the palace of St. James Anne Brett was giving orders to the workmen.

"I want this door taken away and a new staircase made," she was explaining. "You need have no fear. I have the King's authority to do as I wish."

They hesitated but she was an imperious young woman and they knew how she commanded the King.

But the Princess Anne, almost eighteen years old, was as imperious as Anne Brett and she was supported by a dignity which being born granddaughter of a King had come to her naturally.

"What is being done here?" she demanded.

And when she was told she said: "This door remains and there shall be no new staircase."

Anne Brett came out to face the Princess Anne.

"I have given orders..." said Mistress Brett.

"And I have countermanded them."

"I want that door taken away."

"But I want it to remain."

"We shall see. When I tell the King.. "

"Being the King's whore does not entitle you to rule us all, Madam."

"You will see ... when the King comes home "

"Until then, pray remember without him you are nothing but a common whore and as such should remember your place."

"You are insolent."

"You are mistaken. It is you who are insolent. Have you forgotten that I am a Princess."

Anne swept haughtily away; but the workmen dared not continue the work.

Anne Brett went to her room to rage and await the return of the King.

When the Duchess of Kendal heard the news she refused to believe it; she tore at her wig, pulled her bodice to shreds and threw herself on to her bed where she wailed in her misery.

For so many years they had been together. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. She could not live without him.

Her friends tried to soothe her, but they could not; and they feared for her reason.

In Richmond the Prince was enjoying his after dinner nap. The weather was warm and he had eaten with his usual gusto.

Caroline in her apartments had just risen when she heard the clatter of horses hoofs in the courtyard. She went to the window and saw Sir Robert Walpole.

He looked excited. Something important had happened for him to come riding to Richmond in the hot afternoon.

She went to the Prince's bedroom to tell him that Walpole was below and just as she had awakened him the minister burst into the apartment.

The Prince sat up in bed. Walpole was on his knees.

Caroline heard him say: "Your Majesty..."

And she knew the moment had come. The waiting was over. She was Queen of England.

There was change everywhere.

Caroline went to her daughters.

"We are all together now," she told them, embracing them in tears.

Frederick would come home from Hanover.

The whole family would be reunited.

Anne Brett made a hasty retreat from the Palace. She had nothing to hope for now, so even if she had succeeded in getting the alterations she wanted of what use would they have been to her?