Victoria in the Wings: (Georgian Series) Read Free

that she was beginning to wonder whether she had done it too well. But her eldest son had made everything worth while … now, though it had not always been so. The only emotion in her life had been her feeling for him; true, it had come near to hatred at the time of the King’s first lapse from sanity – or at least his first public lapse – when there had been all that conflict over the Regency and she and Pitt had stood against the Prince and Fox.
    Happily that was over; she had only hated him because he would not love her; he merely had to show some affection and she was at his side. She thanked God that now they had come to an understanding; they were allies; she had admitted that George had always been the most important one in her life, and he, sentimental in the extreme, overflowing with affection – providing it did not interfere with his pleasure – accepted her devotion and in return made her his friend and confidante. So as she advanced in years she had gained some comfort. The King, her husband, whom she had never loved and who had put her into a subservient position from the day she arrived in England, making of her, as she often thought resentfully, a prize cow whose only task was to produce a calf every year – was recognized to be insane; adored George was the Regent; and they were friends.
    All had seemed, though not as well as it might have been if theothers had done their duty, at least reasonably acceptable while Charlotte lived and showed herself able to bear children.
    And this brought her back to the terrible calamity which the family had to face.
    She had lost her only legitimate grandchild – and with her the baby who would have secured the succession.
    Action was imperative. What were a few rheumatic pains, recurring dizzy spells? She must return to London and see George without delay.
    The Regent was in Suffolk with a shooting party when the news reached him that Charlotte’s labour pains had begun. It was seemly that he should be at Claremont at the birth of his grandchild who would be an heir to the throne so he left at once.
    He arrived too late to see Charlotte alive.
    Like his mother he could not believe this could have happened. Charlotte had been so vital; that she should have lost the child was a minor tragedy but that she herself should die stunned him. He wept; he embraced the bewildered Leopold who was dumb in his grief, and rode back to Carlton House with the blinds of his carriage drawn.
    The whole nation mourned; the people in the street spoke of Charlotte as though she had been a saint. Verses were written of her:
    Daughter of England! For a nation’s sighs
    A nation’s heart went with thine obsequies.
    The darling of the nation was dead. There was nothing to be done but mourn.
    When the funeral was over the Queen came to Carlton House to speak very seriously to the Regent.
    He received her with a show of great affection and wept affectingly while he talked of Charlotte; he had spoken of little else since her death.
    ‘My dearest George,’ said the Queen, ‘this is a terrible ordeal for us all and you in particular.’
    ‘No one can know,’ murmured the Regent. ‘Not even you.’
    ‘I can imagine,’ said the Queen quickly. ‘But the nation’s affairs must go on and there is little time.’
    The Regent was not listening. He said: ‘I have decided to go to Brighton. I want to shut myself away for a while and I am asking Gloucester to spare me Mary for a few days.’
    The Queen nodded. Mary, his favourite sister, had married her cousin the Duke of Gloucester last year. Mary had been forty then and had been eagerly desiring to marry her cousin for years, but the King had been so firmly against any of his daughters marrying and in fact there were few possible husbands, the qualifications of being both royal and Protestant proving so hard to fill. Mary had gleefully married ‘Slice’ as those dreadful cartoon people had christened Gloucester (comparing him with a