"He seems to be a weak-willed young man from what I hear," said the Princess Dowager. "I do wish he was bringing your sister so that I could hear from her own lips what is happening over there.”

"I fear you would not be comforted. What?”

"Oh, you mean Christian's step-brother. There's no doubt that his mother will be wishing to see him inherit.”

George nodded grimly. He felt so responsible for his sister's welfare and he had often wished that they had not hurried Caroline Matilda into marriage. Fifteen was so young; and he liked to have as many members of his family around him as possible. Continually shocked as he was at the wild life his brothers indulged in, he would particularly have enjoyed having a young sister, whom he could advise and on whom he could dote.

But poor little Caroline Matilda had been sent far from home to a young bridegroom a weak, dissolute young man, more interested in some of his male attendants than in his young bride, and in the strange land she was confronted by this unfortunate scene. And there was a stepmother-in- law with a son whom naturally she would wish to inherit.

"Poor little Caroline Matilda," mused George. "I wonder if I shall be able to talk to Christian.”

George was obtuse, thought his mother. Did he really believe that this little pervert would listen to him just because he was King of England!

"I have heard that Christian has taken Count von Hoick as his favourite now.”

George flushed and looked shocked.

"It's all so unpleasant. What? But Caroline Matilda has her son, little Frederick, so ...”

"So," said the Princess Dowager grimly, 'our dissolute Christian is at least capable of begetting a child.”

"I really find this so distasteful, I find it most distasteful," said George. "I shall do my best to make this known to Christian.”

But when Christian arrived George saw how impossible it was to make any impression on the young man. He sent for Lord Weymouth and asked him to consult the Danish ambassador as to what would best please the young King and to ask for ideas on how to entertain him. When Weymouth returned to George he said he had had a very direct answer.

"The way to entertain the King of Denmark is to amuse him," was the answer. "And the wilder and more perverted the entertainment the more he will be amused.”

"This is most unpleasant, eh? What?" said the King; and Weymouth agreed that it was.

It was impossible for George to feel any affection for his brother-in-law. The very sight of the young man disgusted him. If he had seen him before the marriage he would never have agreed to it, but Caroline Matilda had been married by proxy. There was no doubt of his character. He was not only perverted, he was depraved; and it seemed to be having its effect on his wits.

He was surrounded by courtiers whose main duty it was to praise and glorify him; and the visit depressed George, particularly when he learned that Christian spent his time in the brothels of London in which all kinds of unnatural spectacles had been arranged for his entertainment.

George decided that he would no longer attempt to entertain his brother-in-law, so he went down to Kew to be with Charlotte and the children for a while.

"I cannot help reminding myself how fortunate we are, eh? When I think of what a life my poor sister is leading in Denmark ... and Augusta is not much better off in Brunswick. We have been lucky, eh? What?”

Charlotte agreed that they had. She was pregnant again, and that year gave birth to her second daughter; she called her Augusta Sophia. She now had six children after seven years of marriage.

It was pleasant to see the nurseries so full; but she was beginning to feel that she would like a little respite, if only for a few years.

Meanwhile that inveterate troublemaker, John Wilkes, was getting a little bored with exile and was thinking nostalgically of home. When he had arrived he had found it most diverting to be welcomed as he was by the literary world of Paris. In the Hotel de Saxe he had held his little court and later, when he took up residence in Rue St. Nicaise, he had that exciting and much-sought- after courtesan Corradini to live with him and share his exile. This he had found very much to his taste, and after a short residence in Paris they had travelled together to Rome and Naples, and it was in the latter city that he met his fellow countryman James Boswell and they, finding they possessed similar tastes, mostly for women and literature, greatly enjoyed each other's companionship.

Wilkes had then intended to write a History of England but when Corradini left him for another lover he lost interest in the project and returned to Paris to look at a lodging in the Rue des Saints Peres. Homesickness became more acute; if he had been able to make money with his literary efforts it would have been different; and so would it have been if Corradini had not deserted him.

These two factors together made him decide that he did not wish to live among the French. He was pining for the streets of London, for the coffee and chocolate houses, for the taverns and his literary friends; he wanted to be in the thick of the fight, to live dangerously, to send out his scandal sheets and await the consequences. And he wanted money. There was his beloved daughter Mary to educate. She was the only person in the world he cared about and he wanted to give her all that he believed her worthy of, which was a good deal.

Grimly he walked the streets of Paris and dreamed of London. His ugly face had ceased to be comical; it was only melancholy, and that made his squint look more alarming and not mischievous at all, only sinister.

"I must get back," he told himself. "I'll die of melancholy here.”

He waited avidly for news from London. Pitt was back ... Chatham now. Oh, fool of a man to think the title of Earl could give him a greater name than Pitt. And Grafton was with him. Now there was a man who might give him a helping hand. He didn't trust Chatham who had washed his hands of him when he was in trouble; Wilkes was not going to ask favours of that man. But Grafton was a different matter. Grafton might do something.

He returned to London and there wrote to Grafton, who immediately went to see Chatham. This happened before Chatham had shut himself away and was suffering from that mysterious illness which robbed him of his mental powers; and Chatham's advice to Grafton was not to become involved with Mr. Wilkes. So, dispirited, Wilkes returned to Paris, but within a year he was back again in London and rented a house at the corner of Princes Court in Westminster.

George was disturbed when he received a letter from John Wilkes. The King was at Buckingham House which he enjoyed very much when he could not get to Kew or Richmond. But when Wilkes's servant arrived with the letter the peace of Buckingham House was definitely disturbed.

"What does this man want, eh?" George demanded of himself. "Trouble, eh? What? Here he comes after making a nuisance of himself ... Ought to have stayed in France. Better go back as soon as possible.”

And he was petitioning for a pardon, was he? And after that he'd be wanting compensation!

Wilkes might want to be in London, but London did not want him at least the King didn't and there must be a good many of his ministers who didn't either. George burned the letter and tried to forget the troublesome fellow. As if Wilkes was the kind to allow himself to be forgotten! He kept quiet until the next general election and then he suddenly appeared at the hustings, asking the people of London to elect him to represent them. He failed with London but he did succeed in getting in at Middlesex.

Now the trouble started. The new member for Middlesex was an outlaw; he had been sentenced to exile; he had returned to England without permission; but nobly he surrendered himself to the King's Bench and was committed to prison. Crowds gathered in the streets to see him taken there.

He was in his element, the centre of attraction once more, Wilkes, with his wicked-looking face, his sinister squint and his cries of freedom.

"Such men," said the King, 'could destroy the peace of nations." The City was in a turmoil. People paraded the streets shouting: "Free Wilkes. Wilkes for Liberty." They would have rescued him and freed him on his way to prison but he had no desire to be freed. He wished to go to prison for he realized that while he was there he would hold the sympathy of the people; he would be Wilkes, imprisoned for speaking his mind.

His prison was in St. George's Fields and for days crowds accumulated there to talk of Wilkes and demand his release; the great topic of conversation through the city was John Wilkes. It was necessary to call out the troops to disperse the mob and, when he heard this, Wilkes chuckled with delight, for nothing could have pleased him better.

When, after a month in prison, he was sentenced to a year and ten months' imprisonment, a fine was imposed and he appealed against this in both the Commons and the Lords.

Wilkes! Wilkes! Wilkes! He dominated the scene. Everyone was discussing the rights and wrongs of his case. The great battle took place in print. There were articles written under the pseudonym of Junius in a periodical supported by the Whigs, while Dr. Samuel Johnson made somewhat dull apologies for the Government.

It was Wilkes who was emerging from the conflict as the victor and when he brought a case against Lord Halifax he won and received heavy damages. Thus when he had gone to prison he had been penniless, but he emerged comfortably off.

The King was deeply concerned by almost everything around him. Nothing was as he had believed it was going to be. He had wanted to be the good King surrounded by contented subjects; and during this weary year there had been not only trouble with his ministers and the Wilkes controversy, but every month the situation between England and the American Colonies was growing more and more tense.

Even at Kew, George could not escape from Wilkes. It was not that he discussed the man with Charlotte. At Kew life went on as he had decided it should, completely shut away from the outside world. The Queen was naturally pregnant, and next spring would give birth to her seventh child, and as she was still in her early twenties it seemed hardly likely that she would stop at seven.

The Prince of Wales was now seven years old, bright and more precocious than ever; he was always listening to gossip and repeating it to his parents to show them that he was well in the swim of affairs. He bullied and at best patronized his younger brothers and was indeed the little King of the nursery. He never failed to remind anyone who dared to reprimand him that after all he was the Prince of Wales; but his handsome looks, his bright intelligence, and his often engaging manners won him great affection and he was naturally adored by the nurses and maids of honour. Even the Queen could not help spoiling him a little. He was her firstborn, a sign to the rest of the world that although she might be a plain and insignificant little woman, at least she could produce a charming son.

The people did not like her. She was aware of that. She would never forget driving through Richmond with the King beside her when a woman ran up to the carriage and began to curse her.

It was horrible to be made aware of such hatred and to wonder what one had done to be the cause of it.

"Go back where you belong, you crocodile.”

They hated her because she was a foreigner, because she was ugly. She was small and thin and her mouth made her look like a crocodile, it was true. She admitted to the resemblance when she herself looked in the glass.

The woman had taken off her shoe and thrown it at her. It had narrowly missed her face and hit the upholstery of the carriage.

"Go back. Go back where you belong, you German woman!" A scene. The carriage stopping. The Guards arresting the poor creature who, they said, was mad. She could have been severely punished but both the King and Queen decided against that. But the unreasoning hatred of a mob was a frightening thing, something of which she supposed all kings and queens were made aware at some time.

But in her rooms at Kew she felt a pleasant security; it was as though she were wrapped round in a cocoon which protected her from the world. When she had first come to England she had imagined herself ruling England with the King; now she knew she would never be allowed to do that. Therefore she would rule her own household at Kew ... dear little Kew ... where with her children she could live shut away from the unpleasantness of the world. Not for her to dabble in politics as the Princess Dowager had done but only after her husband's death. She would content herself with ruling her own household.