Jean Plaidy - The Prince and the Quakeress

‘Is that… so?’

‘Your Majesty will see how unhealthy it is that such rumours should be allowed to grow.’

‘But… will they grow?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty, unless you marry and show the people that you live respectably with your Queen.’

‘It is what I intend to do.’

‘There would be a scandal if you did not marry the bride who has been selected for you. Colonel Graeme is already negotiating. If you married the Lady Sarah all this scandal about the Quakeress would be revived.’

‘I do not see why.’

‘This man,’ Bute went on, ‘was fined and allowed to go free with a warning. But there will be others to chatter. We must stop this gossip without fail. And the only way is to marry the Princess who has been chosen for you.’

‘No,’ said George. ‘I will marry Lady Sarah.’

But Lord Bute was sure that the King’s resolution was weakening.

* * *

George could not sleep. All night he had been thinking, Hannah! Sarah! They were together in his thoughts. He could hear their voices in his imagination quite clearly. ‘If you really love me,’ said Sarah’s, ‘you will marry me. You are the King. You have but to say the word and none can stop you.’ Hannah’s said: ‘Think, George. Thou thought thou lovest me once. Remember thy vows. Thou wanted to make me Princess of Wales, Queen to be. And now… thou hast forgotten. Thou wouldst have risked thy crown for the sake of a love that was so ephemeral. See how mistaken thou wert.’

It was true. He had believed he would love Hannah for ever and now he scarcely remembered her – only to shiver with horror to contemplate the folly he might have committed. Yet Hannah had borne his children… he had married Hannah. The thought made him go cold with fear.

Hannah, he thought, you are dead and buried but you will live with me for ever.

And her voice seemed to come out of the darkness: ‘Art thou sure that I am dead and buried, George?’

He faced the truth, the dreadful uncertainty. No. He was not sure. The new gravestone rose up clear in his mind as he had seen it on that day. Rebecca Powell. Who was Rebecca Powell? He had never found out. Why, because even then he had preferred not to know what it was better not to know.

Lord Bute had advised him then. His dearest friend was right. When had he not been right? He was beside him to guide him through all the difficulties which lay ahead. He should trust his friend, and his friend said: ‘You cannot marry Sarah.’

Of course they were right. Kings married the women who were chosen for them. They did not marry the nieces of linen-drapers; they did not even marry the daughters of noblemen. But they did. Henry VIII had done it. Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard. Two heads without bodies laughed at him in the darkness. Yes, and look what became of us. Edward IV had married Elizabeth Woodville for love. He could hear the voices of her little boys crying in the Tower as they were done to death.

It was folly to think of these events in connection with himself. He was a man of gentle nature, he only wanted to live an upright life, to live in harmony with the woman he loved and the family they would raise; he wanted to set a good example to his people, to be happy and make them happy.

That was the crux of the matter, as Lord Bute would say. A King must not think of his own desires but of the nation he governed.

‘I made a great sacrifice for thee,’ a voice seemed to say. ‘George, thou must make this sacrifice for thy country.’

‘What sacrifice?’ he whispered. ‘What sacrifice did you make?’

But he knew. He had suspected and had not wished to know. But in his heart he knew.

She was haunting him. Perhaps she did not want to see him happy with Sarah. Oh no, that could not be said of one who had made such a sacrifice as Hannah had made. But he was imagining this. What was he thinking of? Even now he did not know and he would not seek the truth because he did not want to face it.

All through that night he wrestled with his problem, and Hannah was constantly in his thoughts.

By the morning she had convinced him. He must sacrifice his own desires for the sake of the country.

When he went riding he passed Holland House and there was Sarah in her sunbonnet making hay. He stopped to talk to her and she was very gay and inviting; but when he had talked for a while he rode on.

He believed his heart was broken.

* * *

The Dowager Princess was as ever delighted by my Lord Bute’s brilliance and devotion.

‘You have turned failure into success,’ she cried. ‘I must confess that I was in great fear. And you did it through gentleness and reason.’

‘It is the only way to manage George. We must, though, have the public announcement made as soon as possible. I confess I shall not feel easy in my mind until it is made.’

‘The Privy Councillors should be summoned at once and George himself must make the announcement. I agree with you and shall tremble until he has done so.’

‘He will do it,’ Bute assured her. ‘George’s goodness is our salvation. He is a young man who is determined to do his duty. Would there were more in the world like him. It would be a different place then.’

‘Ah yes, a good boy,’ sighed his mother. ‘What a pity that he should have to be stupid as well.’

* * *

George summoned the Privy Council to hear a matter of urgent and important business. The notifications were marked ‘absolute secret’, and the councillors arrived expecting that the King had decided to make peace or had come to some such momentous decision.

When they arrived he faced them, looking stern and pale, and he appeared to have lost that look of boyish innocence.

He stood up boldly and even as he did so he had a strong inclination to disband the meeting, to tell them all it was a great mistake.

But Lord Bute was there smiling at him encouragingly, anxious for him, wishing him to know that he could help him. ‘You can make her your mistress,’ said Bute, like a fond parent offering a child a sweetmeat to take with the medicine. But that was not George’s way.

‘Be a King,’ said his mother; and she was right. Before he was a lover, he must be a King.

He began to speak a little falteringly at first but his voice strengthened as he proceeded:

‘Having nothing so much at heart as to procure the welfare and happiness of my people, and to render the same stable and permanent to posterity, I have, ever since my accession to the throne, turned my thoughts towards the choice of a Princess for my consort; and now with great satisfaction acquaint you that after the fullest information and mature deliberation, I am come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a Princess distinguished by every eminent virtue and amiable endowment, whose illustrious line has constantly shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion and a particular attachment to my family. I have judged proper to communicate to you these my intentions, in order that you may be fully appraised of a matter so highly important to me and to my kingdoms and which, I persuade myself, will be most acceptable to all my loving subjects.’

Lord Bute could scarcely hide his triumph, but his expression was one of deepest compassion and admiration as he met the King’s gaze.

As soon as possible he was with the Princess Augusta.

‘We must be prompt. There must be no delay. Betrothals have come to nothing before. This marriage must now take place at the earliest possible moment. Only then can we rest. Do you agree?’

‘I am in complete accord.’

‘Then I propose sending Lord Harcourt – a man I can trust – to Strelitz without delay. The Princess Charlotte must come to England at once.’

‘Let it be done, my dear.’

* * *

Lady Sarah could not believe the news. It was impossible. How could he have talked to her as he had when all the time he must have been making arrangements to marry the Princess Charlotte? She could have believed Newbattle capable of such duplicity, but not George.

Lady Caroline Fox was furious. She stamped up and down the apartment.

‘You have been a fool. You have thrown away the biggest chance you will ever get! It was all that folly in the beginning with Newbattle.’

Lady Sarah wept; but Mr Fox came in and shook his head over her. ‘It is a great calamity,’ he said. ‘When I consider all the good you might have brought to the family and all the disappointment you have brought us, I am speechless.’

‘I wish you would be,’ cried Sarah. ‘The whole lot of you.’

Then she threw her head into the pillows and put her fingers in her ears and refused either to look or listen to them.

When they left her she rose from her bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She was pretty. No one she knew was as pretty. And he had thought so. Why had he done this? Why had he insulted her… so publicly. It was not revenge for the way she had treated him over Newbattle. She was sure of that. And he had been so timorous… so eager to please her. He had behaved as though he really loved her.

‘And now… jilted,’ she said dramatically.

She was angry not so much because she had lost George – or rather a crown – but because he had made everyone think that he was going to ask her to marry him and then had, without warning, asked someone else. Everyone would be talking about the King’s engagement and when they did that they would talk about her. Poor Sarah Lennox, they would say. Newbattle would laugh. It was not really very pleasant.

She wished Susan were here. She would have had something to say about this and Susan was always good to talk to.

She could not talk to Susan, so it might be a comfort to write to her.

She took up her pen.

‘Even last Thursday the day the news came out, the hypocrite had the face to come up and speak to me with all the good humour in the world. He must have sent to that woman before you went out of town. Then what business had he to begin again? In short, his behaviour is that of a man who has neither sense, good nature nor honesty.’

There was some comfort in setting her feelings on paper, but nothing could alter the fact that the Lady Sarah Lennox had been jilted – and in the most public manner imaginable.

BY SEPTEMBER OF that year – two months after George had made up his mind to accept the Princess Charlotte, he was married to her.

George was reconciled; he was quite convinced that his duty to his crown must come before any personal desires. His heart had sunk when he had first seen his bride for she was no beauty and he could not stop thinking of the gay vitality of Lady Sarah, the haunting beauty of Hannah Lightfoot. The Princess was very different; she was small and thin, although he was pleased to see, not deformed; she was pale and what could be kindly called homely, with a flat nose and a very big mouth.

He gave no sign of his disappointment and welcomed her with warm affection. He had made up his mind that he would be a good husband to her and never, whatever the temptation he might be called upon to face, be unfaithful to her.

He must forget Sarah; he must stop Hannah from continually intruding on his thoughts.

* * *

Lady Sarah had given up thinking about the King. I had not really wanted him, she assured herself. I would have said No right away if the family had not persuaded me. I’d rather have had Newbattle… but I don’t want him either.

Her pet squirrel was not well and that was a matter of much graver concern to her, she told her sister, than the silly King’s wedding.

Lady Caroline, tired of telling her what a little fool she was, left her alone with her squirrel.

She did, however, write to Lady Susan:

‘I shall take care to show that I am not in the least mortified. Luckily, I did not love him, nor did I care very much for the title. But I am angry to have been made to look a fool. Please don’t tell anyone what I have written to you. I expect George will hate me and the family for ever, for one generally hates people that one is in the wrong with, and who know one has acted wrongly…’

Then she shrugged her shoulders. She was really worried about her squirrel.

* * *

It was a different matter when the bridesmaids to appear at the King’s wedding were selected. These were to be eleven young ladies from the highest families in the land and because of her age and position it was inevitable that Sarah should be one of them.