He went on pitying himself for a few moments and then his anger flared up. ‘You have broken off this marriage … without consulting me. You have decided that a match, to which I and my ministers have given much thought, much consideration … and all for your good, your personal benefit … is to be broken off in this churlish fashion. I do not understand how a daughter of mine can behave in such a way.’

And on and on. She was not listening to the words; she was watching the expressions fleeting across his face. He is acting, she thought; he always acts. He does not know it but he has been acting all his life. He is listening to his own voice now, admiring it. In a moment he will weep. He will be Lear weeping for a daughter’s ingratitude. If only one could explain to him. But how could one? He never saw anyone clearly. He only saw the Prince Regent as he wished to see him and people were good or bad according to their behaviour towards him.

If she remembered this she could be defiant. She could tell herself that she no longer cared for his esteem, that she hated him.

I have my mother, she thought. She loves me. And the thought sustained her.

‘You and your household have consistently gone against my wishes,’ he was saying. ‘I am going to put a stop to that. Your household here is to be dismissed and you are to leave Warwick House.’

‘W … when?’ she stammered.

‘This very night. You will come tonight to Carlton House and stay there until you move to Cranbourne Lodge.’

‘C … Cranbourne Lodge!’

‘Pray do not repeat me in that stuttering fashion. It offends me. I have a new household for you and you will shortly be introduced to them. They will serve you at Cranbourne Lodge.’

Cranbourne Lodge, she thought. In Windsor Park. She would leave London. The Queen and the Old Girls would be at Windsor and she would have to be constantly in their company. And Cornelia … was Cornelia dismissed? How then was she going to keep up her correspondence with F?

‘I must ask you …’

‘You must ask nothing. You must merely obey. Very shortly your new household will be arriving here to meet you. In the meantime go and tell your women that you are leaving Warwick House for Carlton House tonight – and tell Miss Knight to come to me here.’

She stumbled out of the room.

She found Cornelia alone in her room in a state of great apprehension.

‘It is terrible,’ she cried. ‘There is to be a new household. You are to go at him at once.’

‘Miss Knight.’ The Regent looked at her with such coldness that she began to shiver.

‘Your Highness.’

‘I am sorry, Miss Knight, to put you to inconvenience, but I’m afraid I must ask you to leave Warwick House without delay.’

‘Tonight, Your Highness?’

‘Tonight. Your room will be needed for one of the ladies of the Princess’s new household. I must inform you that the Princess Charlotte is leaving tonight for Carlton House where she will spend a few days before travelling down to Cranbourne Lodge in Windsor Park with her new household.’

‘New household, Sir, but …’

‘With her new household,’ repeated the Prince, painfully surprised that Miss Knight should interrupt him. ‘I think it will be better for all concerned if the Princess is not allowed so much freedom. The Queen will be at Windsor and for a time I wish her to be the only visitor whom Charlotte will receive. The Countess of Ilchester will be at the head of the new household and she will be assisted by Lady Rosslyn and Mrs Campbell. Now, Miss Knight, I repeat I am distressed to have to put a lady to inconvenience but I shall need your room and no doubt you will have a few preparations to make before you leave Warwick House this evening.’

‘Sir,’ cried Miss Knight, ‘I beg of you tell me in what way I have failed?’

‘I am making no complaints, Miss Knight,’ he replied, ‘but I wish to make changes in my daughter’s household. You will agree that if I so wish it is a matter for me to decide without explanations. I should blame myself if I allowed the situation now existing at Warwick House to continue. Now I think there is no more to be said. If you have nowhere to go tonight, you may have a room at Carlton House.’

‘I fear, sir,’ said Miss Knight, ‘that that might put you to some inconvenience. My father served His Majesty the King for thirty years; he lost a fortune in that service and his health suffered considerably. It would be extraordinary if I could not put myself to a little inconvenience for the sake of my Sovereign.’

‘Very well, Miss Knight. You may leave us now.’

She curtsied and left the room.

This is the end, she thought. I have lost Charlotte now.

She would go to her; she would summon Mercer; they would discuss this and make some plan before she left Warwick House.

She ran to Charlotte’s room.

‘Where is the Princess?’ she demanded of a whitefaced, scared Louisa.

‘I don’t know. I saw her rushing out of the room like a mad thing. She put on a bonnet and shawl and sped past me.’

‘She can’t have left Warwick House.’ Cornelia felt as though her knees would not support her. ‘Where is Miss Elphinstone? Pray ask her to come to me at once.’

Mercer arrived. ‘What has happened? Is Charlotte still with her father?’

‘No, and we don’t know where she is. She put on a bonnet and shawl and ran out. She can’t have gone into the streets.’

‘I think I know where she has gone,’ said Mercer. ‘She has mentioned it often. She has been saying for the last few days that if her father were unkind to her or tried to force her to anything, she would go to her mother.’

‘She wouldn’t!’

‘In her present mood she would do anything.’

Mercer ran down the stairs summoning the servants. Had any of them seen the Princess?

They had seen someone in a bonnet and shawl running out of the house, someone who looked like the Princess Charlotte but clearly could not be.

And where did she go? Out of the house, into the streets!

‘Someone,’ said Mercer, ‘will have to tell the Regent.’

The Regent was talking to the Bishop when Mercer, with Cornelia, begged leave to enter. It was graciously given.

‘Your Highness,’ said Mercer, ‘I fear the Princess has left the house.’

‘Left?’ said the Regent. ‘Where can she have gone?’

‘I fear to her mother, Sir.’

The Regent smiled. ‘Then, of course, the world will know the type of person she is. No one will marry her now. She has ruined her reputation.’

There were tears in Mercer’s eyes. ‘I trust Your Highness does not blame me for this.’

His manners would not allow him to be unmoved by a lady’s tears so he said gently: ‘I am making no complaints, as I told Miss Knight. I have merely decided to act.’

The Bishop said: ‘Is it Your Highness’s wish that I and Miss Elphinstone should follow the Princess?’

‘It might be a wise thing to do.’

‘Perhaps Miss Knight would accompany us,’ suggested Mercer.

Miss Knight, fearing that she was at any moment going to disgrace herself by bursting into tears, could only think of placating the Regent. ‘I could not bear to enter that house.’ she said with a shudder.

The Prince Regent was looking a trifle bored. He said: ‘You must do what you will. I am due at a card party at the Duke of York’s.’

With that he left them. They stood bemused, listening to the sound of his carriage wheels as they faded into silence.

When Charlotte snatched up her shawl and bonnet there was one thought in her mind: she must go to her mother. There she would find refuge. She would wait to consult no one … not even Mercer. She must delay not one second for if she did it might be too late. Only her mother could save her from … prison, for that was what it would be. Cranbourne Lodge would be far worse than anything that had happened before. She had defied her father and she was sure that he would never allow that to happen again, if he could help it. But her mother would protect her. She ought to have gone to her long before.

She ran out into the street where she had never been alone before. What did people do when they wanted to get from one place to another? They took a hackney coach and there was one coming towards her now.

‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘Stop!’

The whip was held up to denote that the coach was free and a whiskered face was close to hers.

‘Hop in, lady, and where do you want to go?’

‘To Connaught House. Do you know the way?’

‘Connaught House. That’s the Princess of Wales’s place, that is. That’s where you want to go, is it?’

‘Oh, yes, please, and quickly. Can you hurry?’

‘Anything to please a lady.’

Up the Haymarket and on to Oxford Street. Charlotte looked out on the passing scene. What was happening now at Warwick House? What was her father saying? Had he discovered her flight? There would be storms. But never mind, she would be with her mother and she would not leave her. They would live together and have the people on their side.

‘Connaught House, lady.’

And praise to God, there she was.

What did one do? Pay the man? She had no money.

‘Wait a moment,’ she cried imperiously. One of the doormen was gaping at her.

‘Your Royal Highness …’

‘Blimey!’ said Mr Higgins the hackney coachman.

‘Pray give this man three guineas,’ said the Princess. ‘He has driven me here and deserves it.’

What an adventure! thought Mr Higgins. He would talk of this night for the rest of his life. And three guineas! She was a real princess, this one.

Charlotte went into Connaught House. ‘Pray take me to the Princess of Wales at once,’ she said.

‘Your Highness, the Princess left an hour ago for Blackheath.’

‘Then let someone ride there immediately and tell her that I am here. It is a matter of the utmost importance.’

A messenger was hastily despatched.

Mr Higgins was not the only one who believed this was going to be a night to remember.

The groom who had been despatched to Blackheath caught up with the Princess of Wales in her carriage, accompanied by Lady Charlotte Lindsay on the way to Blackheath.

She put her head out of the window and asked what brought him.

‘Madam,’ she was told, ‘the Princess Charlotte has run away from Warwick House and is at Connaught House. She has come to you for protection, she says. She sent me off immediately to tell you so and to beg you to return.’

The Princess of Wales chuckled.

‘Well, this will cause a bit of excitement in some quarters, I know,’ she said to Lady Charlotte. ‘Turn the horses,’ she commanded. ‘We’re galloping back to London with all speed.’

On the way she said: ‘We’d better have Brougham and Whitbread. Oh yes, we’d better have this done in the right manner. I’ll swear he’s champing with rage. So she has run away from him to me! It’s the best thing that’s happened for a long time.

‘Call at Mr Brougham’s house,’ she shouted, ‘and after that at Mr Whitbread’s.’

She was laughing softly as she lay back against the upholstery.

Mercer was the first to arrive at Connaught House. When Charlotte saw her she went to her and embraced her.

‘My dearest Mercer, I knew you’d come. I won’t go back. I am going to live with my mother from now on. I should have done it years ago. She loves me. She wants me. He never did.’

‘The Bishop is downstairs,’ said Mercer. ‘We came together. It was not very wise of you to run out like that.’

‘It was the only thing I could think to do. I feared that if I stayed it would be too late. He was there … with the old Bishop ready to carry me off to prison. I would never have been allowed to come to my mother.’

‘Where is your mother?’

‘She had left for Blackheath. She will soon be with me for she was not very far on the road and I sent a groom galloping after her. I am sure she will be here soon.’

‘She may feel embarrassed because you have run to her.’

Charlotte laughed a little hysterically. ‘My mother never feels embarrassed.’

‘We must wait and see what she has to say … when she comes … if she comes,’ said Mercer.

‘If she comes! Of course she will come. She would never desert me. I can’t think why I didn’t see it before. I should have run away long ago.’

Mercer looked dubious and for once Charlotte did not believe her friend was entirely with her.

‘You saw my father?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’