‘That,’ said Frederick, ‘remains to be seen.’

‘Can nothing be done to stop this?’

Frederick shook his head. ‘Wardle’s determined. Behaving like a self-righteous martyr. Nothing is going to stop him. This is Edward’s doing.’

‘Our own brother – surely not! I can’t believe it.’

‘Oh, Edward’s changed. He’s become embittered. It was that Gibraltar business. He doesn’t forgive me for recalling him. He wants to show he’s a better soldier than I am. He’d like to be Commander-in-Chief, I don’t doubt. George, what am I going to do?’

The Prince was silent He would do anything for his brother, but what help could he offer? Once they started asking questions in the House one had to take the consequences. He remembered when a question had been asked in that holy of holies by some bumbling old country member which had led to Fox’s denial of his marriage with Maria. And look what trouble that had caused.

He looked at Frederick helplessly. ‘Fred, if there’s anything I can do …’

Frederick grasped his hands. They could always rely on each other; of all the brothers they had been the closest, and they were almost as horrified by Edward’s treachery as by the situation itself.

They both knew that the least that could happen to Frederick would be to lose his position in the Army.

Trouble, thought the Prince. Just trouble all round. So the storm broke. There had rarely been such a scandal in the royal family. Colonel Wardle, as he had threatened, delivered his bombshell in the House, doing as he declared ‘his duty’ to the Army and the country.

The people were both outraged and amused. Yet another indiscreet love affair of the royal family. One had to admit they were entertaining. Even the stolid Duke of Kent had a mistress, although he lived most respectably with her, as did Clarence with Dorothy Jordan. Now they were going to hear something of the adventures of the Duke of York.

Within the royal family as throughout the country the main topic of conversation was the Army scandal.

The King had grown visibly older and more incoherent.

‘I can’t believe this of Frederick,’ he told the Queen. ‘If it had been George …’

‘George would never have been such a fool as that,’ insisted the Queen. But would he? she wondered. These sons of hers seemed capable of the utmost follies over women.

‘Frederick,’ babbled the King. ‘Hope of the House … Best of the bunch, eh, what?’

‘It’s to be hoped not,’ retorted the Queen. ‘If he is the best, heaven help the rest.’

‘Why do they do these things, eh? What happens to them? They have no sense of duty. It makes me think we failed somewhere … in the way we brought them up, eh, what?’

‘Your Majesty was always the strictest of fathers,’ replied the Queen, determined not to take the blame. He was the one who had laid down the laws; he had never allowed her to disagree with him. Often she had wanted to protest against the canings that had been administered. It had turned them against him, she was sure; it had made them wild. It was never good to restrict high-spirited young people too much. Yes, it was his fault, silly old man. She could scarcely be sorry for him; she had never loved him; but she was concerned now for his health for if he broke down it could mean a Regency and when that had almost happened before (and would have been established but for the King’s recovery) she and her eldest son had become the bitterest of enemies.

So she tried to soothe him.

‘This woman seems to be an adventuress. Perhaps she is not telling the truth.’

‘Adventuresses! Why do they get themselves mixed up with adventuresses, eh, what?’

‘I don’t think William’s actress is exactly that. From all accounts she seems to be keeping him. And Edward’s Madame de St Laurent is a very worthy creature. As for Maria Fitzherbert, Your Majesty has always had a certain admiration for her. And Lady Hertford, whom George seems to be pursuing now, is very jealous of her reputation. So they are not all mixed up with adventuresses – although I do agree with Your Majesty that these liaisons are not exactly desirable.’

‘And there’s the Princess of Wales …’

‘Oh, she is a monster! And to think that she is Charlotte’s mother. I hope and pray the child doesn’t take after her. Although I must say Charlotte often causes me misgivings.’

‘She’s a sweet child. I am fond of my granddaughter.’

‘She needs a great deal of correction, I do assure Your Majesty. The Princesses and I are deeply concerned. Now if you please she has shown a tendency to make particular friendships. We shall have to watch over her very carefully.’

Anything, thought the Queen, any topic to turn his mind from this terrible affair of Frederick’s.

And she had managed it. The King’s mind wandered so much nowadays. She had set him thinking of Charlotte who for all her faults was a pleasanter subject than Frederick’s horrible affair with this low woman.

The Princesses whispered together.

‘Have you heard the latest news? She is to appear before the Select Committee. She will have to give evidence at the Bar of the House. What a scandal.’ Augusta had left her embroidery to fall to the floor in her excitement.

‘Even George has never given us such a scandal as this,’ added Elizabeth.

‘They say she has produced his love letters,’ said Mary.

‘Just fancy having your love letters read in public.’ Sophia was aghast.

‘And I daresay Frederick’s are rather silly,’ put in Elizabeth. ‘He could never spell.’

The sisters started to laugh; but Amelia said: ‘I tremble to think what effect this is going to have on Papa.’

Mary Anne was rather pleased with all the limelight.

‘It’s somewhat different from the dreary life in the country,’ she said.

Mrs Thompson, her mother, who had ceased to marvel at the adventures of her daughter, asked timidly: ‘Isn’t it something of a disgrace?’

‘For poor Fred. Not for me. Do you know, gentlemen are writing me notes making me the most attractive offers.’

‘Oh, Mary Anne! Will you take them?’

‘I have so much to consider,’ she replied. ‘In the meantime I must make a good impression at the Bar.’

She did. She chose her costume with care. Blue silk – to bring out the blue in her eyes – edged with white fur. Her muff was of white fur, too. She looked exciting, very pretty and quite ten years younger than she actually was. Excitement always improved her; and she had never been at a loss for words. In fact it was her quick wit – often quite clever – which had helped her to her place in society as surely as her beauty had. On her fair curls she wore a white fur hat with the most tantalizing veil. And thus she was ready to face the assembly.

She enchanted most of them. She was so completely feminine, both demure and saucy; and she successfully dealt with those who tried to bully her, scoring over them to the amusement and delight of so many onlookers. If this was disaster for the Duke of York, it was triumph for Mary Anne.

Corruption there had been. That much was evident. The point was how much had the Duke of York been involved in it? Had he been completely innocent of it? This was hardly likely but it was of great importance to the royal family and to Frederick that he should be proved a fool rather than a knave.

Mary Anne, urged by her supporters to bring her former lover to ridicule, produced some of his letters, which were read aloud in the court. This was the highlight of the case, for Frederick was no scholar; his letters were ungrammatical, ill-spelt but intensely illuminating; and gave a picture of his intimate relationship with his fascinating Mary Anne. They were quoted in all the coffee-houses and the taverns.

The King ranted for hours at a time. He sent for Frederick; he demanded to know what he thought he was doing. ‘No sense of duty, no sense of propriety. Can’t settle down like a good husband. Got a wife … what was wrong with that? All those animals it was true. Barren … No children. Very unsatisfactory, eh, what? But not as unsatisfactory … as criminally unsatisfactory as trafficking with this woman and undermining the discipline of the Army, eh, what?’

Frederick was wretched. He couldn’t understand how he had got himself so entangled. He went to Carlton House and talked endlessly to the Prince of Wales who while he sympathized had to admit that it was the worst scandal that had hit the House. He reckoned it was this sort of thing which could start a revolution. They hadn’t to look very far back across the Channel. Mary Anne was a beauty – the Prince conceded that; and he was no stranger to the sudden and irresistible passions for a woman which could beset a man, but Frederick had gone a little far in letting her become involved with the Army. So there was no great comfort even there.

As for William, he shrugged his shoulders. Really Fred was a fool. The other brothers were sorry for him but they did think he had been too absentminded or indulgent or plain stupid. Edward did not come near his brother; he couldn’t help chuckling when he remembered Frederick’s recalling him from Gibraltar. Was Frederick remembering that now? To think he had complained of Edward’s behaviour.

‘Ha, ha,’ said Edward to himself; but not to Julie who might have been a little shocked. Dear Julie, he wouldn’t have liked her to be otherwise. But she couldn’t understand a man’s pride in the profession for which he lived and worked; and what it meant to see an inferior placed above him – just because he was older, just because their father doted on him, just because he was easy-going and good-natured. This would teach them.

So poor Frederick was wretchedly unhappy while the case was being tried. There was no comfort anywhere … except with George, though even he couldn’t entirely hide the fact that he thought Frederick had acted like a fool; he couldn’t go out to any of his clubs because he knew that people were talking about him, remembering phrases from his letters to Mary Anne, tittering over the banal manner in which he expressed his sentiments.

Frederick stood before his mirror and said to himself: ‘Damn it, I’m not a writer. I’m a soldier.’ His reflection mocked him. A soldier. He was an even worse soldier than a writer it seemed; at least that was what his enemies were trying to prove.

There was no one who really stood with him. He had never felt so friendless in his life. George – yes, George— but he knew that things had never been the same between them since their quarrel over Maria Fitzherbert and the Duchess of York.

The door of his bedroom was quietly opened and someone was standing there looking at him. He stared at his wife. ‘You here?’ he stammered.

‘Yes.’ She came into the room and sat down on the bed.

‘You have been hearing of this … affair,’ he said; and he thought: She has come to mock me, which is understandable. She is my wife but I never loved her and I showed it quite clearly. As for her, she always preferred her animals.

She nodded. ‘I have heard,’ she said. ‘And I think at such times it is well that we are under the same roof.’

‘What?’ he cried.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘It is why I have come to London.’

‘But you hate London.’

‘I prefer the country.’

‘And your dogs and cats and birds and monkeys … you prefer them.’

‘They are well looked after. They do not need me now.’

‘And … I do.’

‘It is well at such times that a wife should be with her husband … to show that she believes him innocent of what is being proved against him. They should be seen together. At other times, let them go their own ways … but in times of trouble they should be together.’

He looked at her rather mistily. He was sentimental like the Prince of Wales, and now he was deeply touched that she, of all those near to him, should have been the one to stand by his side.

The case ended with Frederick’s being acquitted of complicity in corrupt practices by 278 votes to 196.

Pacing up and down the drawing room at Castle Hill Edward received the verdict with jubilation.

‘He’ll have to resign his command,’ he told Julie. ‘It’s not possible for a Commander-in-Chief to have suffered the indignity of such a case.’

‘Even though he is not proved guilty?’

‘My dearest Julie, 196 people believed he was guilty. He’ll have to resign.’

‘Will they give you the command?’ she asked.

His mouth was grim. ‘Who can say? It may be that they’ll have had enough of royal dukes. Frederick has disgraced the family as well as himself.’