The Third George: (Georgian Series) (13 page)

‘It would be pleasant,’ said George, ‘if we had a house where we could live apart from the Court … well, not entirely so, but a place where we could be free from continual ceremony. I think I will buy you a house.’

‘A house for me!’ cried Charlotte, enchanted.

‘Which,’ George reminded her, ‘you will invite me to share with you.’

They talked of houses.

‘I never liked Hampton Court,’ he told her in a rush of confidence. ‘My grandfather once struck me there … and I always remember it.’

‘Struck you. He must have been a disagreeable old man.’

‘He was. I don’t think he meant me to take it so seriously. He had a very quick temper and I suppose he thought me particularly stupid. In any case he struck me, and I have never liked the place since.’

‘Then I shall not like it either,’ declared Charlotte.

‘But I never liked it even before that incident,’ went on the King. ‘It’s too flat. I asked Capability Brown to do something about the gardens and he refused me. He said there was nothing to do there and he declined out of respect for himself and his profession.’

‘Capability!’ she said. ‘It is an odd name.’

‘His name is Lancelot. But he is called Capability because, when shown a garden, if he wishes to work on it he remarks; “This has great capabilities.” He is a despot about gardens … but a genius; and it is said that there is no gardener in the world to compare with him. He can transform a place.’

‘And he refused to touch Hampton?’

‘He refused to touch Hampton,’ repeated George with satisfaction. ‘I want you to come to see Wanstead House which is on the market.’

How she enjoyed these excursions with the King. He brought to them a cosy intimacy. They might have been a nobleman and his wife with no state duties, choosing their first home together.

Wanstead House was enchanting. ‘One of the finest houses in the country,’ said George. ‘If you had stayed here on your way to St James’s, you would have thought the Palace a mean place in comparison.’

‘It is a little farther in the country than we hoped,’ suggested Charlotte. ‘It is beautiful, I admit. I have never seen a house which delighted me more; but if we lived here we should not be able to visit it often.’

George nodded. Charlotte was proving herself to be a practical young woman.

‘There would be a journey through the city,’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, you are right. It is too far from St James’s. We should never be
able to retreat without a fuss. I suggest that we go back and take a look at Sir John Sheffield’s house. He wants £21,000 for it.’

Charlotte was delighted when she saw Buckingham House. She declared that for position it was exactly right, being so near St James’s.

They both decided it would suit them and went through the vast house talking excitedly in German about what alterations they would have made.

The King took the matter of Buckingham House up with his ministers and it was finally decided that if the King would give up Somerset House, which would be used for public benefit, the country would settle Buckingham House on the Queen.

This seemed a reasonable and very pleasant arrangement, and Charlotte and George gave themselves up to the happy occupation of planning a house.

Very shortly reconstruction was in progress and the house became known as the Queen’s House. Happiness had its effect on Charlotte’s appearance.

One of the Court Wits remarked: ‘The bloom of her ugliness is wearing off.’

*

Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg grew more important every day – in her own opinion. It was inconceivable, she reasoned, that these English women who surrounded her mistress should have more standing than she had. She was German; she had known her mistress when she was merely the insignificant sister of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; therefore she was a specially privileged person.

Albert? He was merely the hairdresser – a lower servant. Haggerdorn – a woman without spirit, meant to serve such as Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg.

She had inaugurated a new method of dressing the Queen. As it was beneath her dignity to take active part in the operation, she would direct it.

She attempted to make this clear to the English women by signs and grimaces which they pretended not to understand. Then she approached Charlotte and asked her to explain to the ladies that as Her Majesty’s personal attendant she was in authority over them.

In her happy frame of mind Charlotte wanted to please
everyone and told the English, in French, that in future Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg would direct them.

Elizabeth Chudleigh listened with outward decorum, but immediately talked over the matter with the others.

‘You can see very well what is going to happen,’ she declared. ‘Everything in this place will become German. It is always the same with these Germans. They want to impose their dullness on everyone else. I shall be looking like a
hausfrau
very soon and so will the rest of you, and there will be no entertainment but music … music … music. And worse still, no one will be able to approach the Queen except through Schwellenburg.’

‘The Queen seems to want to give the loathsome creature a special place in her household, so what can we do about it?’ asked the Duchess of Ancaster.

‘Plenty,’ retorted Miss Chudleigh; and proceeded to act. Under her devious and expert direction the knowledge soon reached the ears of the Princess Dowager that Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg had a great influence with the Queen, that she gave her orders in the Queen’s apartment and that the English maids of honour were in revolt.

Miss Chudleigh was summoned to the Princess’s apartment and gave her opinion that Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg was an ambitious woman and she was certain that in her odious German, in which she chattered volubly, she was making all sorts of plans to run the Court in accordance with her German ideas.

One could trust Miss Chudleigh to scent trouble even if one could trust her in no other way; and the Princess Dowager graciously thanked her, implying she would be grateful for more news, that it would be well for Miss Chudleigh to work faithfully for her since her position at Court was a somewhat precarious one, owing to her rather dubious relationship with the Duke of Kingston. To which implication Miss Chudleigh responded with equal grace and innuendo. She was in possession of some secrets concerning the King and a certain Quaker lady; and she did – having helped to arrange that affair – know a little more about it than most; and she was sure that in the hands of the scribblers and lampoonists it would make a story that would not amuse but shock the people of England; but she was keeping quiet because, just as the Princess Dowager wished to please her,
so did she wish to retain the esteem of the Princess Dowager.

The Princess Dowager inclined her head in acknowledgement of a delicate situation. Elizabeth Chudleigh’s place was safe at Court however disreputably she behaved; though Elizabeth Chudleigh would do well to remember that there were some limits beyond which a Princess would not go even to avoid involving her son in a hideous scandal.

The situation was clearly understood between them; and as in moments of uncertainty, as the Princess Dowager had always done, she sent for Lord Bute.

He came quickly. She looked at him anxiously, wondering if he were changing. Was he a little less devoted? Did he spend more time with the King than with her? Naturally he must keep his eyes on the King for all their sakes – but was he slightly less attentive to her than in the past? And had the change come about since George’s elevation to the throne?

As be bent and kissed her she felt it was unworthy of her to entertain such thoughts for a moment. She was not a promiscuous woman; she did not seek a host of lovers; the liaison between herself and Lord Bute was as a marriage, lacking nothing but the benefit of clergy. She could trust him and he could trust her. Their goal was the same and they would march together towards it.

‘Disturbing news, dearest, from the Chudleigh woman.’

‘Trust her to scent trouble.’

‘She has her uses … if one can trust her.’

‘Ah, if one can trust her! What’s the trouble now?’

‘Schwellenburg; she is giving herself airs, making trouble with the other women and in fact setting herself up as a little queen. You know what that can mean. Very soon she will be selling honours; she will be making Charlotte the centre of a coterie of power. You know the signs.’

‘I know them full well. With the shining example of Sarah Churchill not far behind us we have good reason to be suspicious of these ambitious women near a queen. But with this one the answer should be simple.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Send her packing.’

The Princess Dowager laughed. ‘Trust you to find the solution. Why didn’t I think of it?’

‘Because you thought to please me by letting me suggest it.’

She gave him a tender look. ‘We had better go to see George about it, and suggest it would be better if Schwellenburg left.’

‘We’ll ask him to come here.’

‘My dear! Sometimes I think you forget he is the King.’

He turned to her and there was a fierceness in his look which, while it alarmed her slightly, delighted her.

‘He is still our George. Nothing can alter that. We will ask him to come here.’

Yes, she thought as he ordered a page to go to the King and request his presence in his mother’s apartment, her dear Lord Bute had become more sure of himself since the King’s accession.

*

‘I do not think,’ said George, ‘that Charlotte will care to relinquish that woman. She came from Germany with her. It is natural that she should want to keep her.’

‘It is a situation all Princesses have to face,’ his mother pointed out. ‘We come with our attendants and after a while must do without them. Moreover, Schwellenburg is making trouble with the other women.’

‘It is better to have a peaceful atmosphere in the Queen’s apartments,’ said Bute softly. ‘It is better for the Queen.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ sighed George. ‘But I don’t care to ask Charlotte to give up this woman.’

‘Your Majesty need not distress yourself on that score,’ said Bute promptly. ‘What are your subjects for but to do that work which is distasteful to Your Majesty?’

He smiled at the Princess Dowager as though to say: See how easily our battles are won?

*

Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg was incensed.

‘But, Madam, this is monstrous. This cannot be. They will send me away. Who will care for you? I … only I … know how to do that! I came with you from Germany …’

Charlotte said: ‘This is nonsense. Who says you are to go?’

‘It is orders. They come from the King. I am to go, to leave the Palace within a few days. My transport is provided. Back to Mecklenburg, they say. Oh, no, no, it is impossible.’

Charlotte was aghast. Not so much at the prospect of losing Schwellenburg, whose overbearing ways were often hard to bear,
but that her dismissal should have been decided on without reference to herself.

She went to the King and asked him what this meant; and what was her position here in England if she could not decide who should be her own servants.

George looked embarrassed. ‘It is the custom,’ he explained, ‘for foreign servants to go back to their homes after a certain period. They come, you see, to help you settle in. Well, now I should say you had settled in, wouldn’t you?’

‘I do not understand this. I do not wish Schwellenburg to go … unless I myself dismiss her. Tell me this, pray. Was it your mother who asked you to order this?’

George admitted that this was so.

‘Then will you ask her to come here so that I can hear the reasons from her lips.’

‘You make too much of this, Charlotte. You shall have other women to replace her … women who understand our ways.’

‘All the same I wish to speak to the Princess Dowager in your presence.’

George looked uneasy. He hoped Charlotte was not going to turn into a virago, just as he had been congratulating himself that he had acquired a pleasant, docile wife.

But he wanted to please her; and secretly he could see her point. After all, as Queen she should be allowed to choose her servants surely.

The Princess Dowager came with Lord Bute at the King’s summons, and when they saw Charlotte’s distress they knew the reason for it.

‘Her Majesty is concerned,’ the King explained, ‘that you should have asked for the dismissal of Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg.’

‘I know exactly how you feel, my dear,’ said the Princess Dowager fixing her cold eyes on the Queen. ‘Did I not suffer in exactly the same way when I first came to this country? Of course I quickly began to realize that those who had lived here longer than I knew best …’

‘I cannot see what harm Mademoiselle von Schwellenburg is doing here.’

The Princess looked pained. The Queen had no manners; she had actually interrupted her. No doubt the little upstart was
suffering from conceit. Where had she come from? Some little Dukedom that no one had ever heard of! When it had been known that the English ambassadors were going there, that wit Horace Walpole had said, ‘Let us hope they will be able to find it!’ But of course these were the sort of people who gave themselves airs. The Princess Augusta did not look too searchingly into her own origins, but at least
she
had been absolutely docile all through
her
married life. And if an ambitious woman should not have a few political ambitions when she was free to do so, when could she ever display her talents? If this little Madam was the Queen she herself was the King’s mother; and but for the death of her husband she herself would have been queen. No, little Charlotte must be promptly put in her place – which was, queen or not, considerably lower than that of the King’s mother.

‘Then my dear, you must try to understand. That woman is overbearing. She is causing trouble among your attendants. It is a common enough situation – and she must go.’

The young woman who had dared write a letter to Frederick the Great came to life at such an ultimatum. She herself was not so very fond of Schwellenburg that she would be heartbroken to lose her. Who could be as fond as that of Schwellenburg? But she would have to find someone to take her place. Haggerdorn was too meek; and there must be someone with whom she could speak her native tongue. No, she was not going to be robbed of Schwellenburg as easily as that – if only to show her mother-in-law that she would not be treated in such an undignified manner.