Poor Frederick always seemed to get the worst of any bargain, and even in this one Anne Vane outwitted him. So piteously did she tell her story that the whole Court was humming with it. She could starve in England, she declared, if she would not go abroad and be parted from her child.
This was a dastardly way to behave, said Anne’s brother and Lord Hervey and others. The woman had been his mistress; he no longer desired her and he was about to marry; but he must remember his obligations.
Frederick floundered ineffectually. He denied that he had sent such a message; then he recapitulated and said he had written to Miss Vane because a friend of hers had intimated that the settlement he offered would be agreeable to her.
Everyone was talking about the affair of Miss Vane, and the Prince was in such a position that he could only declare that she should continue in her house in Grosvenor Street and that he would pay her her £1,600 as long as she lived.
Hervey walked to her house and was let in by Anne herself and smuggled up to her bedchamber that her servants might not see him.
She was exhilarated.
‘I’ve never been so comfortably placed in my life,’ she said. ‘All this and no encumbrances. I wish him joy of his Augusta. Poor girl, I pity her!’
They laughed over the affair and she told him that she had had some anxious moments, for after all it was dangerous to do battle with a Prince; but she had such good friends and she would always be grateful to them. However, the affair had brought on her fits of colic and her doctors had suggested she go to Bath for a few weeks.
‘I shall leave little Fitz with my brother and his family while I go,’ she said. ‘They’ll be happy to have him.’
‘Don’t stay away too long,’ Lord Hervey instructed.
She passionately assured him that she would not and that very soon they would resume their exciting adventures.
This they did not do, however, for Anne had not been long in Bath when her little son died of a convulsion fit. When she received this news Anne had an attack of what she called the colic. It was rather more severe than the previous ones and her doctor ordered her to keep to her bed for a few days.
In a week she was dead.
The Prince of Wales was overcome with grief at the loss of the little boy whom he claimed to be his son.
‘I should not have thought him capable of such emotion,’ said the Queen.
The King’s Temper
MEANWHILE the King was finding it more and more difficult to delay his departure from Hanover, for with each day Madame de Walmoden seemed to grow more irresistible.
There were despatches from Walpole. His presence was needed in England. His Majesty had not forgotten his birthday and that his subjects would take it ill if he was not in London on that day, which was one of universal celebration.
He knew it—yet he delayed. But the time came when he could delay no longer if he were to be in England in time for the birthday. He had already given himself the minimum of time to reach home, not accounting for any delays which could so easily occur on the way.
Madame de Walmoden declared that she did not know what she would do without him. He meant everything to her. He was the most handsome, charming, intelligent man she had ever met and if he were the humblest servant in his own household she would still love him.
George basked in this admiration and believed it. His mistress was so convincing. She had also told him that she was pregnant and she could not bear that he should not be there when their child was born.
‘I will soon be here again,’ he promised.
‘Do you mean that?’ she asked tearfully. ‘Will you swear?’
‘I swear,’ he declared solemnly.
‘I must have a date to look forward to.’
He sighed. November ... December ... January....
She shivered. ‘You must not attempt to cross the sea during such months. I should die of fear.’
He kissed her and assured her that that fat old man in London would try to put a chain on him and certainly not let him off it so soon. ‘But ... by May ... the end of May, then I shall come. No matter what they say, I shall come in May.’
‘Seven whole months! ‘ she sighed.
‘My dearest, they do not want me to come once a year. They are going to do everything they can to prevent me in May.’
She did not press the matter but she constantly talked of the 29th May.
The night before he left Hanover there was a banquet over which he presided with a great deal of melancholy which the Hanoverians found very flattering, although they knew that the reason why he was so sad was because he must part from his mistress. Still, she was a Hanoverian —one of them; and the King made it clear twenty times a day that he loved their country and hated the one of which he was King.
Madame de Walmoden toasted him with tears in her eyes.
‘The 29th of May!’ she cried, and everyone present took up the cry.
‘The 29th of May!’ responded George.
After a night of passionate love and protestations of fidelity on both sides, the King left Hanover next morning, realizing that if he were to make the journey in time for his birthday he must travel fast.
Caroline was returning to the Palace after morning chapel when a messenger hurried to her to tell her that the King was on his way to Kensington and would be there very shortly.
She hastily summoned the Court and went to meet him.
As George alighted from his coach he managed to suppress the pain he felt. He was wretched, uncomfortable, and unhappy. It had been a trying journey for he had made it in less than five days by riding far through the night and scarcely stopping at all for rest and food. As a consequence this had brought on an attack of haemorrhoids from which he suffered intermittently; he was tired, and in pain, and moreover he was angry because he had left his mistress and wouldn’t see her for a long time, and as he grew farther and farther from Hanover and nearer to England he realized that there were going to be lifted eyebrows and worse still remonstrances when he suggested returning to Hanover as they would say ‘so soon’.
All this did not make a very happy homecoming.
And here he was at Kensington. Too grand, he thought. Too ostentatious compared with dear Herrenhausen. And Caroline. She was fat. Doubtless she had been guzzling chocolate more freely than ever since he had been away. His dearest Amelia Sophia managed to have exactly the right amount of warm, soft flesh without being fat.
But this was his dear wife and he loved her. She was his comfort and he would never forget that. She was smiling and so happy because he was home.
She bent and kissed his hand and with a gesture of tenderness he took her arm and they went into the Palace together.
He wondered how he managed to keep his temper while all the ceremonies went on. There were as many ceremonies in Hanover—but somehow they seemed more reasonable and in any case he was in pain and he wanted to go to bed and he hated being ill because he always felt that Was a slur on his manhood.
At last he was alone with the Queen.
She was anxious, but one did not suggest that the King might be ill.
She said that it must have been a tiring journey.
He told her exactly how long it had taken between each stage and grew quite animated doing this. He doubted the journey had ever been done so quickly.
‘It must have meant long hours sitting in the coach,’ she said. He looked at her sharply. So she guessed.
He said gruffly: ‘I had better see one of the physicians. Have him brought here without fuss. Let no one know that I have sent for him.’