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In the Queen’s drawing room overlooking the gardens, the double wedding

took place— two middle-aged bride grooms with young wives; at least Mary

Louisa Victoria was not old and Adelaide was thirty years younger than the Duke

of Clarence.

It was to Clarence and Adelaide that everyone looked for the heir; neither of

the husbands was in love with his wife nor the wives with their husbands; the

great purpose behind these marriages was to get an heir quickly, and they knew it.

They were fired with ambition, all four of them; and when the Duke of Kent

looked at his comely plump widow he was certain that he and she had as much

chance as William and this pretty young girl from Saxe-Coburg Meiningen.

And the Prince Regent as he led the congratulations when the ceremony was

over was sentimentally dreaming of a bride with whom he would defeat the

ambitions of these four people; a beautiful woman— a combination of Perdita

Robinson, Maria Fitzherbert, Lady Jersey and Lady Hertford— yet subtly

different from any of them— young, tender, adoring. He would marry her and

together they would produce a son who would be heir to the throne.

There was time yet if only—

But here he was back to that perpetual and frustrating matter.

He must be rid of her soon.

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She reasoned with Elizabeth but Elizabeth for once opposed the Queen who at

length agreed because she knew that the Regent would be on his sister’s side and

would say that if she wished to marry she should do so.

So the marriage took place.

The ceremony in the throne room was very formal and the Queen felt very sad

to lose yet another daughter.

The Prince Regent was unable to attend the ceremony because he was ill, and

there was no doubt that Charlotte’s death had upset him greatly. He would be well again, thought the Queen, if only he could be rid of that odious woman.
If it were
his marriage we were celebrating to a young and fertile woman how pleased I

should be!

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Marriage was in the air. The Princesses saw no reason why their brothers

should be married and not they. All this time, they had lived under the direction of the Queen, not allowed to stray very far from the closest supervision as though

they were children. Their youth was past. Charlotte had married the Prince of

Würtemberg and in spite of the mystery which surrounded her husband’s first

wife appeared to be living happily; Amelia had died at the age of twenty-seven,

unmarried.

It was so unfair, said the Princesses, never to have been given a chance of

marriage.

Mary announced that she would marry her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester. He

was a little simple and known as ‘Silly Billy’ but she did not care about that. She was past forty anyway and was going to seize this last chance.

The Prince Regent had never been averse to his sisters marrying. Had he been

in control earlier he would have done his best to find husbands for them. It was

the King who had hated the thought of their marrying. So now no obstacle was

put in her way.

Princess Elizabeth was determined not to be left out and when an opportunity

came from Homburg she made up her mind to take it. The Prince of Homburg

was very fat— but Elizabeth was by no means slim. ‘And at least, she said to

Mary, ‘he is a husband.’

The Queen was against the marriage. She saw her daughters disappearing one

by one. She had grown so accustomed to having them all about her; and they had

made up to a very large extent for the trouble her sons had caused her.

The waters of Bath had done little to alleviate the Queen’s illness and

although she had attempted to ignore this during the various marriage celebrations she knew that she was very ill indeed.

I’m getting old,
she thought.
I’m seventy-five and have had my life. I must
expect now to prepare myself to go.

She wished that she could have been with the King. He would have been most

sympathetic. But he, poor sad man, was living through his clouded days at

Windsor and he would not understand if she talked to him. And if he did, it would only upset him.

He never loved me,
she thought;
but he had some affection for me. He
respected me. He knew that like him I tried to do my duty.

She thought she would go to Windsor in any case because she would like to

be near him; but first of all she would go to Kew. Dear little Kew, the palace

which she had loved more than any because it had been like home to her. Yes, it

was fitting that she should first go and say goodbye to Kew.

She was comforted in some degree to be there again— the dear Green and the

Strand and those houses where the members of the household had lodged because

there had been no room for them in the Queen’s Lodge. Oh, those little rooms, the numerous cupboards and cubby holes! How draughty it had been in the passages

and the rooms had always been overheated. The chapel had been icy too. In the

winter everyone had caught cold there. Why did she love the place? Because it

was unlike a royal palace, because it was homely, because it would always be

‘dear little Kew’. Here— the children had been young.

The Prince of Wales— a bad boy— creeping out of his apartments after dusk

to meet young women in the garden. He had always been a source of delight and

trouble to her: her first-born, her, favourite. Now, thank God, they had at last

come to an understanding.

She would be loath to leave Kew. She would not say this to anyone but she

felt that if she did so, she would never see it again.

She was glad that the Princess Royal seemed to be making a success of her

marriage, and Elizabeth wrote happily from Homburg. The girls should have been

married before. But the King would not have it and she must confess that she

encouraged him in this because she wanted them about her. The sons, they had

been unable to control. They had gone off and had their matrimonial adventures—

disastrous ones— but the girls had been denied those opportunities. And now

Elizabeth and Mary as well as Princess Royal were married, but none of them

young,

It was no use regretting now. What was done was done.

She was ill— seriously ill at dear little Kew. She was aware of her daughters,

Mary and Augusta, constantly at her bedside. The Prince Regent came too. He

held her hand and wept, and she was happy.

More than anyone in the world she had loved him. The period when they had

hated each other and had worked so violently against each other seemed now like

a temporary madness which had come to her and to which he had responded,

It was love really,
she told herself.
I wanted him to love me and I was jealous
because he loved others more, and so I pretended to hate him and I behaved as
though I did.

But that was all past and now he was with her, at her bedside, holding her

hand.

Sophia was not there because Sophia was ill. Otherwise she would have been

with her sisters.

Her sons came to visit her and she was vaguely aware of them: the new

bridegrooms whose wives might well give birth to an heir to the throne.

But in her heart she hoped George would be the one to do this. If they could

get rid of that woman—

She knew how that matter occupied the mind of her dearest one.

All through the week the Prince Regent’s carriage was seen going to and from

Kew, and it was recognized that the Queen was nearing her end; and on a dark

November day her family gathered in her bedroom for the physicians had warned

them that the end was very near.

She had insisted on being put in her chair and she sat there breathing heavily.

Her family was with her and the Prince Regent was seated beside her; her hand

was in his.

And so she died.

————————

It was fitting that it should be Kew Palace where she should lie in state. The

Prince Regent was so affected that he had almost fainted at the moment of her

death. He was overwhelmed by remorse for all the enmity which had been

between them, sorrow that he could no longer let her know that she was restored

to his affections and a great relief that they had parted good friends.

He wished that she could have lived longer to see him parted from the woman

he had married. He believed that if she could have seen that, if he could have

married, she would have forced herself to live and see his heir.

But it was not to be.

Her coffin was carried by torchlight from Frogmore to Windsor and there she

was buried in the royal vault.

————————

This was a period of momentous events in the royal family— for births and

deaths must be so called.

The Prince was tiring of Lady Hertford. She was frigid and no one knew

whether or not the friendship was platonic. What he needed in his life was

comfort and affection. He did not get this from Lady Hertford whose greatest

concern was to protect her reputation and to lead him in politics.

For a time he had been fascinated, but with the loss of his mother he needed a

woman who could be loving, affectionate and uncritical.

He thought often of Maria. He would always think of Maria. But Maria had

retired from the scene; she wanted no more upheavals in her life. She had diverted her affection to Mary Seymour, little Minney. She was old— older than he was

and although young girls had never appealed to him and he had chosen one

grandmother after another, he wanted someone whose beauty could inspire him.

Marriage! He thought continually of it. Which always brought him back to the

same problem.

There was another birth in the family. Not, it was believed, a very important

one this. In May of the year 1819 the Duchess of Kent produced a daughter.

She was called Alexandrina Victoria.

————————

The Clarences had not been so fortunate as the Kents. The Duchess had borne

two children, none of whom had survived. Meanwhile the Duke of Kent gloated

over his plump, healthy little daughter whose looks already showed her to be a

true member of the House of Hanover.

He was delighted, he remarked to his Duchess, that little Victoria had a

chance— a very fair chance. York could not produce an heir now; and it seemed

that Clarence could not. And if they did not there was nothing between their own

little Victoria and the throne.

‘But a girl,’ said the Duchess, her eyes sparkling at the prospect.

‘The English are not averse to women rulers. There was Elizabeth. There was

Anne. They were both more popular than any George has ever been.’

He spoke regretfully. He had wanted to christen Victoria ‘Elizabeth’, but the

names had been chosen for her and she was Victoria after her mother.

‘I have a feeling,’ said the Duke, ‘that what I hope might well come to pass.

It’s just a feeling but it’s very strong.’

Shortly afterwards he took his wife and child to Sidmouth which he thought

would be healthy for little Victoria. It was a rainy season and on several occasions the Duke, who was fond of walking, was out in torrential downpours, as a result

of which he caught cold; inflammation of the lungs set in and in a few days he

was dead.

Little Victoria was fatherless but a step nearer the throne. And within a few

weeks she had taken even another step forward. The King whose mind had given

way so many years ago but whose physical health had remained very good,

suddenly became ill.

He had no will to live. In those rare faintly lucid moments when he was aware

of what had happened to him, he had always wished for death.

He need wish no longer.

Six days after the death of the Duke of Kent he too was dead.

The Prince Regent had become George IV.

SINCE the death of her daughter Caroline had lived a little more soberly. She

often reproached herself for not being in England at the time of Charlotte’s

confinement.

‘A mother should be with her daughter,’ she told Lady Anne Hamilton who

had joined her and was proving to be one of her most faithful attendants.

‘It was not easy in Your Highness’s place,’ Lady Anne reminded her.

‘I wonder whether I should have stayed.’

She was not at all sure and it was a question no one could answer.

She had heard, long after the events, of the marriages in the family and of the