‘Oh?’ said the Queen. ‘Does this in any way concern that woman he so dotes on?’
‘She is ill, Madam. And could be dangerously so. This is one of the reasons why Sir Robert is so distrait at this time.’
‘Poor Sir Robert! But I am surprised that a man of his talents should feel so deeply towards such a woman.’
‘Your Majesty has heard gossip of this woman?’
‘Well, I heard that he paid so much for her and that she makes demands upon him.’
‘I have heard that he paid £6,000 “entrance money”! ‘
‘You are an enfant terrible, my child.’
‘Would Your Majesty care to terminate this rather shocking conversation?’
‘I have lived too long at Court to be easily shocked by the morals of those about me. Pray go on.’
‘Maria Skerrett lodged with her stepmother next door to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, and that’s how Walpole met her. He was immediately attracted, but then before he met her he was flitting from woman to woman like a gay old ram in a field of sheep.’
The Queen laughed.
‘And, so the story goes, the transaction was made and a year later young Maria was born. Then our minister acquired the Old Richmond Lodge and made a home of it for them all. And every week-end, there he went to enjoy the sweets of domesticity. He was a changed man since he met Maria.’
‘I am glad he has amusement for his leisure hours. She must be very clever to have made him believe she cares for him.’
‘What, Madam, she does.’
What, that man with his gross body, that enormous stomach, and his swollen legs! ‘
Poor Caroline! thought Hervey. She is envious of this devotion between her minister and his mistress. She is beginning to find the strain of placating George unbearable. ‘Well, I hope she is soon better and that care is lifted from his shoulders,’ said Caroline briskly.
They began to talk of other things and he sought to amuse her with some of the verses he had written about the Court personalities.
He was very gratified to be on such terms with the two most important people in the country, to have such a power over both of them.
To work thus in the shadows was a role which became him well.
The Prince and his Mistress
THE King had been thinking of Hanover for some time. He talked of it continually and whenever he did so his voice would grow soft and his eyes become glazed with tenderness. Finally he announced his intention of paying a visit to his foreign dominions.
Walpole, returned from Houghton, whither he had taken Maria to recuperate after her illness, had now recovered from his melancholy since Maria was well again. He called on the King who received him testily in his private closet, expecting that he had come to protest about the proposed visit to Hanover. He was right.
‘Your Majesty,’ began Walpole, ‘a visit to Hanover will at this time be very unpopular with the country.’
‘If there is no visit that will be very unpopular with me,’ retorted the King.
‘At this time when there are disturbances on the Continent....’
‘In which we are not involved as you so wished,’ put in George.
‘In which, sir, we are most happily not involved. It is not a good moment for the visit. If it could be postponed ...’
It has been postponed too long. There will be no more postponements.’
‘Parliament is about to rise,’ said Walpole. ‘There will be business to attend to. To send despatches from my home in Chelsea to St James’s or Kensington is an easy matter. To send them from London to Hanover ...’
‘They’ll survive the journey.’
‘The King of Prussia is Your Majesty’s enemy. He would seek every chance of discomfiting you. Who knows, with affairs as they now stand, he might decide to drive you out of Hanover.’
‘Let him try! Nothing would please me more than to show him the stuff I’m made of.’
‘Your Majesty would agree that for you to be involved in combat with Prussia would not be to England’s advantage.’ ‘Enough! ‘ said the King.
‘Your Majesty, I must point out to you ...’
‘Pooh and stuff! ‘ shouted the King. ‘You think to get the better of me, but you shall nod ‘
There was nothing Walpole could do but retire.
He went to the Queen.
Could she persuade the King to see reason?
Caroline looked at him steadily and he saw that this was another occasion when she was not on his side.
‘He continues to talk of Hanover,’ she said. ‘He will go on fretting and fuming until he has what he wants.’
‘Madam, the situation is dangerous. He will be with his German advisers. They might persuade him to enter the war.’
‘He could not do it without the consent of the Parliament.’
‘The Opposition would support him merely to discomfit me.’
‘If you decide there shall be no war, there would be no war. That was what happened, was it not?’
‘I have reduced my majority, Madam, and increased my enemies. I should prefer the King to stay in England.’
The Queen did not speak. How ill she looks! thought Walpole. Oh, God, why will she not admit it? There is something wrong. Is she hiding it? What does Charlotte Clayton know? Could he ask her? The woman had always hated him so it was hardly likely she would tell him.
He understood suddenly. The Queen wanted the King to go because she needed a few months rest from his eternal tantrums, from his husbandly attentions, from his ill temper. The Queen needed to be free.
Walpole had never once doubted the importance of the Queen. He respected her mind and her judgment. It was rarely that they disagreed; and over this matter of war she had admitted she was wrong. The fact that she could admit this enhanced her value in his eyes.
He needed the Queen, and the Queen needed a respite from the King.
Walpole made up his mind. He would put no more obstacles in the way of the King’s going to Hanover.
The King left for Hanover and in a few days the Queen seemed to have recovered a little in health. She now rested for a part of the day; she curtailed her walks; she was more relaxed. When Walpole visited her he knew that he had been right to run the risk of what mischief George could fall into in Hanover for the sake of giving the Queen this respite.
Caroline was contented. She kept her daughter, her namesake, at her side as her constant companion and the other was, of course, Lord Hervey. How she doted on that man! She could scarcely bear him out of her sight. Walpole was not disturbed, for Hervey was his man too. Hervey was really the son she would have liked. The relationship was of that nature, for they were a perfect trinity—Caroline the mother, Caroline the daughter, and Hervey, so beloved of them both.
The Prince of Wales was growing more and more angry at this friendship between his mother and his great enemy, but who cared for the Prince of Wales? And really young Frederick was a fool. What would happen to the country when he became King, Walpole could not imagine. Fortunately for Walpole it would be some other long-suffering minister’s unenviable task to control him. Our conceited little man seems considerably preferable, he thought.
Amelia went her own way—probably having a love affair with Grafton. Who could be sure? In any case Amelia would know how to take care of herself. William was arrogant, passionately interested in soldiering, like all these Hanoverians, but a bright boy. A pity he had not been the eldest. The children, Mary and Louisa, were still in the nursery and the only reason their names were mentioned outside the immediate family was because they had a pretty governess who had caught the eye of the King.