‘How clever of you to find out!’

‘I have heard it from several sources and that they are thinking of appointing the Duchess of Leeds to take her place as your governess.’

‘The Duchess of Leeds!’

‘She is a meek creature and would give you little trouble.’

‘But as governess! I have sworn I’ll never have another.’

‘They are going to insist on it.’

‘They? You mean the Queen. I suppose she is behind this.’

‘Your only chance would be to appeal to your father.’

‘Of course. I’ll write to him. You’ll help me to compose a letter, Mercer?’

Mercer inclined her head like a wise mandarin. That was in fact what she had intended to suggest.

Mercer said: ‘A letter such as this is of the utmost importance. Your affairs are, after all, the concern of the State. A copy of this should be sent to Lord Liverpool.’

‘Lord Liverpool!’

‘Certainly. He’s the Prime Minister, is he not?’

For comfort Lady de Clifford took a larger pinch of snuff than usual. After all these years, she was thinking, to be dismissed more or less, for that was what in her heart she felt it to be. All the years I have looked after the Princess … and then to be thrust aside.

Seeing her governess so dejected, Charlotte tried to cheer her and smiled at her brightly.

‘My dear Princess Charlotte, it does me so much good to see you,’ sighed Lady de Clifford. ‘A privilege I fear I shall soon have to do without.’

Charlotte nodded with an almost ready resignation.

‘Of course,’ went on Lady de Clifford, ‘it is a great wrench for me.’

‘These separations are inevitable.’

‘And very sad.’

Charlotte could not honestly concede that. ‘You’ll be happier without me,’ she consoled. ‘Think of the trial I was to you. All the wicked things I did.’

‘One expects waywardness from children.’

‘All my unsuitable friendships,’ continued Charlotte. ‘My lack of dignity. It may well be what is known as a happy release.’

Lady de Clifford was shocked. She had expected a pleasantly tearful scene with Charlotte imploring her not to go. This was very different. So ungrateful! thought Lady de Clifford. And how typical of royalty!

Guessing her thoughts Charlotte tried to placate her without pretending. ‘You see, Cliffy, I am too old for governesses. It is not just you. It’s that I want to be free. I’m too old to have a governess and that’s a fact.’

It was the right angle. Poor Cliffy brightened considerably. If the Princess were too old to have a governess there would be no slight implied by her dismissal. It was only if another was appointed that people would say she had failed.

‘Your Highness is right, of course. You are no longer of an age to have a governess. If I might offer a word of advice I would say that should they try to inflict one on you you should refuse.’

‘That’s the sort of advice I can accept because it accords entirely with my intentions,’ replied Charlotte; and wondered what poor ineffectual Cliffy would say if she knew that letters were on the way to the Regent and the Prime Minister.

That day Charlotte was visited by her Aunt Mary and she could not resist the opportunity to speak of that matter which was uppermost in her mind. Mary was shocked. Charlotte had not been officially told. How, she wanted to know, had Charlotte learned of this.

‘Cliffy herself told me she’d resigned and that her resignation was accepted. I think she was hoping I would implore her to stay and was hurt when I did not.’

‘You don’t regret her leaving you, then?’

‘Dear Aunt, I am not a child any more and I have done with governesses. Nothing will induce me to accept another.’

The Princess Mary felt it her duty to inform the Queen of this conversation. Mary was enjoying a certain amount of independence, largely because of the Regent’s action in settling an income on her and her sisters, but the habit of a lifetime was strong and the Queen had trained her daughters to report immediately anything that might be of the slightest interest to her. Matters which concerned the Princess Charlotte were of vital importance to her and her immediate action was to send for Charlotte and Lady de Clifford.

When they arrived at Windsor where the Queen impatiently awaited them, they were received coldly, and scarcely glancing at Lady de Clifford the Queen expressed her surprise that a governess should have felt the necessity of telling Charlotte she had resigned.

‘A matter,’ she added, ‘which the Princess should have heard from myself or the Prince Regent.’

‘But what does it matter from what source I heard it?’ demanded Charlotte. ‘Besides, I knew about it. Everyone is talking about it.’

‘Everyone, Charlotte? I beg of you, do not exaggerate. This is a most distressing affair and made unnecessarily so, I fear.’

‘It is inevitable,’ retorted Charlotte. ‘I am too old for governesses.’

The Queen said: ‘I am surprised that you feel so little regret at the prospect of Lady de Clifford’s departure. She has been with you so many years. I’m afraid this shows a most unfeeling nature.’

‘It doesn’t,’ contradicted Charlotte. ‘It’s merely that the time has come for me to do without a governess.’

‘That,’ replied the Queen shortly, ‘is not a matter for you to decide. Your father will doubtless convey his decision to you in due course.’

‘His decision! I hope Your Majesty does not mean that he has another governess in mind for me!’

‘A father is in no way bound to explain his decision to a daughter and a daughter has only to concern herself with obedience.’

Charlotte was angry but, as always in the presence of the Queen, was unable to explain her feelings.

But those letters which she and Mercer had composed would, by now – or very nearly – be in the hands of her father and his Prime Minister. Then the trouble would begin.

The Regent read his daughter’s letter with an astonishment which quickly turned to fury. So she would lay down instructions to him! She would plague him! Was it not enough that he should have to tolerate the wife an unkind fate had given him! Must he be cursed as well with a disobedient troublemaking daughter!

She would soon discover that it was not her prerogative to order him, and as soon as a new governess was appointed and her present household completely reorganized the better.

He sent for his Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon, and gave him Charlotte’s letter to read.

‘Well?’ demanded the Prince.

Eldon grunted. ‘Her Highness will need very firm treatment,’ he said.

The Regent nodded. He could trust the wily lawyer to stand by him in this matter which was an important one when there were such rival factions at work. Charlotte might be a minor just now but she was an heiress to the throne – and this was doubtless the reason for her defiance, for she was fully aware of her position. But ‘Bags’ – his nickname for Eldon – could be relied on. He was the best sort of henchman, perhaps because his roots were in trade rather than the aristocracy, and he had had to rely on his own abilities to reach his present position. His father had been ‘in coal’ at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whatever that meant. The Regent thought of it vaguely as ‘Trade’. However, he was not one to look closely into a man’s origins. Old Bags was his Chancellor and his man.

‘We shall go at once to Windsor to see my daughter,’ announced the Prince.

‘And explain to her doubtless that it is not for her to dictate to Your Highness.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And that Your Highness sees clearly how much she is in need of a governess?’

‘It is obvious, is it not?’

‘Your Highness has chosen?’

‘I am considering the Duchess of Leeds.’

Eldon inclined his head. ‘And the rest of her household?’

‘I think a clean sweep, don’t you, Bags? We have already dismissed some of them.’

‘Your Highness shows your usual insight. My daughter …’

‘Would like a place in Charlotte’s household? I don’t see why not.’

Bags was well satisfied.

Charlotte stood before her father, cowering a little in the face of his fury which he was showing with great dramatic effect – not entirely assumed for he really was annoyed with her. The Queen, snuffling from a cold (and no wonder, thought Charlotte, when one considered those horrible draughty corridors at Windsor. ‘Enough to drive a man o’ war,’ someone had said) sat watching her granddaughter with baleful satisfaction.

Lord Eldon stood close by the Regent as though to support him. (Silly old man. As if the powerful Regent needed protecting from his daughter!)

‘This letter,’ the Prince was saying, ‘which you have had the effrontery to send to me and worse still to my Lord Liverpool is the most foolish, ineffectual, disloyal and ridiculous document it has ever been my misfortune to read.’

‘It … it is what I mean,’ stammered Charlotte.

‘What you mean! What exactly do you mean? You will have no more governesses, you say. Let me tell you, that is not a matter for you to decide. Lady de Clifford is resigning and may I say it is time, too, since she seems unable to induce you to behave with the dignity due to your rank. Your conduct shocks us all. Her Majesty …’ The Queen nodded sharply and looked malevolently at Charlotte … ‘My lord Chancellor …’ Lord Eldon raised his eyes to the ceiling and Charlotte would have liked to throw something at him. ‘Myself …’ The Prince held a lace kerchief to his eyes to wipe away an imaginary tear … ‘We are all deeply wounded by your thoughtless and indeed callous behaviour.’

‘Papa, Your Highness, I am nearly seventeen …’

‘We are fully aware of your age and that makes your conduct all the more to be deplored. I should have thought you were old enough to realize the pain you are causing us all …’

‘It causes me pain that I should be treated as a child.’

There were shocked looks from the Queen and Eldon because she had interrupted the Prince Regent.

‘It is clear,’ commented the Queen grimly, ‘that you have not yet finished with governesses. You are in sore need of correction.’

‘Exactly so,’ agreed the Regent. ‘You are headstrong and perverse. So pray let us hear no more of your folly.’

Charlotte stamped her foot. She had to stand firm now or they would keep her shackled for years. Mercer had said she must put her case clearly. Her mother had told her to defy the Regent and the old Begum. They would have to realize that there were powerful men ready to help her.

‘But,’ she began. ‘I … I will never submit to another governess. A … lady companion I might consider, but never a governess.’

‘There you are wrong,’ corrected the Regent, ‘for a governess you shall have. Pray do not attempt to go against my wishes. I may tell you that I know of certain very unfortunate scenes which have passed between you and certain young men, and for this alone I could have you shut up for life if I felt so inclined.’

‘S … shut up for life!’

‘I am referring to Hesse and Fitzclarence and certain meetings in Windsor Forest. Utterly disgraceful. Utterly unworthy of a princess of your rank. There has been correspondence with people whom I have forbidden you to know. Can you deny this?

Charlotte was silent and the Regent went on triumphantly: ‘There! You see! You show your guilt.’

‘If you … shut me up like a prisoner, what can you expect?’

‘My lord Eldon,’ cried the Regent, ‘what would you do if you had such a daughter?’

‘Your Highness,’ replied Eldon, ‘I should lock her up.’

Charlotte looked at Eldon in silence for some seconds then turning to her father asked if she might retire.

‘You may if you have come to your senses.’

She made a somewhat clumsy curtsey in his direction and another to the Queen and left them.

In her apartment she threw herself on to her bed and burst into tears.

Lady de Clifford, eager to know what had taken place, came hurrying in.

‘What is it, my dearest Princess? What has happened to upset you?’

Charlotte sat up and stared fiercely before her. ‘That coal heaver said I should be locked up. Let him wait until I’m Queen. I’ll make him wish he had died before he had said that.’

‘Lock you up!’ tittered Lady de Clifford. ‘Rather unseemly words for a coal heaver to use when referring to the future Queen of England.’

Charlotte pummelled her pillow as though it were the offending Eldon’s head. But she was really thinking that she had lost her battle. She was no match for them and they had decided to saddle her with another governess no matter what she said.