They embraced and afterwards talked of Frederick.
‘He wants to go to the wars.’
‘Like Papa to fight for Germany.’
‘He fancies himself as a soldier.’
‘They all do ... these Germans. It’s the military instinct. And Fred is angry because he is not allowed to go.’
‘They’re on at him all the time. Lyttleton and Chesterfield with Bolingbroke in the background. He ought to have this.... He ought to have that. Poor Bubb is going to be dropped soon. I don’t know how he’ll take it. The Opposition is going to agitate for war ... just to try to get Walpole out.’
‘They won’t. But it’s amusing to see them try.’
‘Let’s talk about Wimbledon and what we shall do when I’m there.’
They arranged that Anne should come up to London one day a week to her town house. There she would keep only one servant while she was in Wimbledon and see that this servant was out when Hervey arranged to call.
This seemed very suitable and having made their plans Hervey went straight to see Walpole to tell him the effect the King’s clamouring for war was having on the Prince of Wales and his enemies in the Opposition.
He found Walpole in a state of great irritation.
‘I have just been given this paper,’ he told Hervey. ‘Look at it. In French! You can help me translate. It’s written by Haltorf.’
‘Ha!’ cried Hervey. ‘One guesses where Philip von Haltorf’s sympathies lie!’
‘Be fair to the man. He is a German, as well as minister in London for Hanoverian affairs.’
‘And so determined to sacrifice England for Hanover.’
‘As we are determined that England shall make no sacrifices for the Germans.’
Hervey scrutinized the paper.
‘I see he is most disturbed by the growing power of France and the House of Bourbon. He recalls the wars of Queen Anne’s reign. He does not understand why the country which went to war then so readily should be so chary of doing so now. If England does not interfere, France will dominate England.’
‘I shall answer each paragraph separately.’
‘The King will be very peevish.’
‘My lord, England shall not go to war to please a peevish boy.’
‘Not when Sir Robert Walpole—and in his humble way Lord Hervey—are there to prevent it.’
Walpole grasped his hand warmly and Hervey responded with real affection.
The King continued to fume and the Queen, to Walpole’s disappointment, remained sturdily beside her husband in this matter. ‘The first time I have known her judgment to fail,’ Walpole commented to Hervey. George’s temper grew worse and everyone who came near him suffered for it, the Queen most of all in spite of the fact that she supported him in his desire.
Walpole remained firm. England was not going to war under his leadership; and even the King had to admit that if the matter were put to the country the people would be behind Walpole.
In spite of Hervey’s agreeing with Walpole the Queen liked him none the less. In fact he was growing more and more friendly with her; and this meant that he was on more intimate terms with the King.
Caroline had asked the King to give him an extra thousand pounds a year.
The creature is worth it,’ she said. ‘He is so diverting.’
The King grunted that people at the Court should serve their Majesties for the honour of it, but he agreed that Hervey should have the money.
As a result Hervey grew bolder and bolder and would joke with the Queen in the frankest way; and although she often reproved him for his lack of respect she always did so jokingly and did not wish him to change his manner towards her.
Whenever she rode out he must be beside her chaise. Divert my attention, I pray you,’ she would say, ‘from these tiresome people who so like to hunt little animals to the death.’
And he would remember the latest scandal and tell it so maliciously that she would indeed be diverted and find the hunt a pleasure instead of a bore.
She would call him ‘child’ now and then; and refer to him as her ‘pupil’ and her ‘charge’. All this in the utmost affection; and she would even allow him to laugh at the Prince of Wales, and although she pretended to be shocked and would reprove him with mock sternness he knew that she liked this conversation better than that about anyone else.
So during those months as the antagonism between the Prince of Wales and his parents grew stronger, so did the Queen’s affection for Lord Hervey.
Once when Charlotte Clayton came in and found the Queen and Lord Hervey deep in bantering conversation, Caroline said: ‘If I were not so old I should be talked of for this creature.’
Charlotte Clayton smiled benignly. Hervey had made sure that he kept in her good graces for Walpole had told him that it was his belief that Mrs Clayton had some hold over the Queen and therefore carried influence with her.
The Queen was delighted because her daughter Anne was coming to England for a visit. This was a great pleasure, for Caroline had only discovered how sadly she would miss her daughter when she had left; and often she would wake up in the night thinking of Anne with that grotesque creature beside her.
And now Anne was coming home because the Prince of Orange was away from Holland fighting.
When the King heard, he was half pleased, half angry. Of all his children, strangely enough he preferred Anne, although that did not mean he had a great affection for her because he cared little for any of his children. But he was sentimental enough to imagine he was pleased to have her home again. Then he began raging because Orange was fighting and he wasn’t.
‘That baboon! ‘ he said. ‘A soldier.’ He glanced in a mirror. Did he see himself as he really was? wondered Caroline. Or did some tall and handsome hero look back at him from the glass? ‘And here am I fiddle faddling at this Court when I should be there.’ Then another thought struck him. ‘I suppose Orange will pay for her journey.’
The Queen soothed him as she so well knew how to do. ‘I am sure Anne will be so pleased that you are not at the wars,’ she said. ‘Otherwise she would miss the pleasure of seeing you.’
He grunted, believing the Queen was right in that.
But he continued to grumble about the ‘gros homme’his name for Walpole who had been so high-handed over this matter and was having his way, too, in keeping England out of the war.
‘A King’s not a King in this place,’ said George, kicking at a stool. ‘Now at Hanover ...’
‘Ah, yes! ‘ sighed the Queen.
She too was thinking of the ‘gros homme’. He had opposed her over this and she was beginning to wonder whether he did not guide her as she guided the King. But it was the first real difference of opinion they had had; and she must remember that she was after all a German and that it was natural to feel this pull towards one’s own roots. It was the same with Walpole. He was English and to him Hanover was a remote Electorate and he was determined to see that it was never allowed to be an incumbrance to England.
The King left her and she was glad that he had gone before Walpole called for his usual session with her.
As she received him in her closet, she thought he looked less robust than usual; and when a man with his port-wine complexion looked a little pale he somehow contrived to look more ill than a man whose pallor was constant.
This disagreement has upset him, thought the Queen.
Walpole thought the Queen looked extremely fatigued and he was overcome with a sudden fear. Was she concealing an illness? It suddenly struck him that a knowledge of some disability might be the reason for Charlotte Clayton’s hold on her.
He bowed and looked at her almost tenderly. But he could not resist saying what he had come to say.