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Caroline thought of her daughters in another part of the palace and wondered what stories they were hearing of the differences between their parents and their grandfather. She asked that they might be sent to her, that if they were under arrest the whole family might be together, but was told that the King's orders were that the girls were not to visit their parents.

She was more alarmed than ever when she heard this.

He is capable of any cruelty, she thought. And again she thought of his wife who had been separated from her two young children.

What next? she wondered.

She felt faint and feverish, and this was an additional anxiety for she knew that in this crisis she needed all her wits.

Their sentence came to them, explained in a document which the King had prepared. They were free to go, but they were banished from St. James's.

George Augustus read the document aloud to her.

"Banished! " he said. "Good riddance to him and his miserable court. Ve'll have our own. A fine goot court. He von't like that. Oh no, my old rascal."

"And is that all?" she asked.

"No, there is some more."

She was out of bed and taking the document from his hands. She felt dizzy as she read:

"It is my pleasure that my grandson and granddaughters remain at St. James's where they are. The Princess will be permitted to see them when she has a mind, and the children will be permitted from time to time to go and see her and my son."

Caroline dropped the document and stared at the Prince.

"Do you see vat he is doing?"

"He is sending us avay." The Prince snapped his fingers. "Let him. Ve vill have von fine big court ... better than his. To ours vill come his enemies. He is von big fool."

"He is going to keep the children from us."

"He says you can see them ... from time to time."

"From time to time! My own children. They are going to be taken from us. And the baby He is so young. He needs his mother."

"You are distressed, my tear. That old scoundrel ... his is von vicked old devil... but ve vill outvit him yet."

"My children," murmured Caroline. "My little baby. Don't you see. This is his punishment to us! He is going to rob us of our children?"

He could not share her grief. He was planning ahead. He would have his court and the Prince's Court would be a rival to the King's. It would be no different from before, except that the people would be sorry for him; they would be on his side. The old devil had not been so clever after all.

But Caroline was heartbroken. This was the cruellest blow he could have inflicted. Perhaps he knew it and that was why he had planned it. He was going to separate her from her children.

There was no time for grief. They were expected to leave on receipt of the King's order.

"Where to?" asked Caroline in bewilderment.

No one knew. All that mattered was that they left St. James's without delay. It was the King's wish that they did not spend another night under the same roof as himself.

Caroline called for Henrietta.

"Tell all the women to make ready. We are going at once."

"Where, Your Highness?"

"That I cannot say. All I can tell you is that we are leaving St. James's."

"And the children?" asked Henrietta.

"They are to remain," replied Caroline, bitterly, "on the King's orders."

"But..."

"I can tell you no more," replied Caroline. "We are to leave at once."

Mary Bellenden asked leave to give a note to the Prince or Princess. It was Caroline who took it and saw that it was from the Earl of Grantham. He had heard what had happened and wished to place his house in Albermarle Street at their disposal.

"So," said Caroline blankly, "we have somewhere to go."

At the same time the King's messenger had arrived with a note to her from the King.

She read it eagerly hoping that he had had some change of heart with regard to her children.

The King wrote that he understood she had not recovered from her confinement and was not well enough to move at present. He would therefore grant her permission to stay at St. James's with her children providing she made no attempt to communicate with her husband who must leave the palace without delay. Unless she kept this promise she would be banished with her husband while her children remained at St. James's.

Caroline re-read the letter. He was offering her her children or her husband.

Never in her life before had she had such a decision to make.

The Prince came to her. "Vat now?" he asked; and when she showed him the letter, his face grew scarlet with rage.

"He vould try to separate us ... he vould try to tempt a vife from her husband!"

"There are the children."

"You vill them see," he told her. "He does not say you vill not see them. From time to time, he says. But it vill not be for long. Ve vill think of something, my tearest."

And she looked at him and knew that she must choose to be with him. She was necessary to him. What would become of him without her? What would become of them both? He was as one of her children and she dared not desert him now.

She wrote to the King: "Where my husband goes there must I go too."

The maids of honour were packing hastily.

"This is disastrous," said Margaret Meadows. "It is the beginning of real trouble between the King and the Prince."

"We'll have a better time in the Prince's Court than in the King's," commented Sophie Howe. "Of all the dreary places in the world ... St. James's is the most dreary! "

"I wish it were like that summer at Hampton," said Molly Lepel. "That was a glorious time."

Mary Bellenden joined them; she was in high spirits, for where she went John Campbell as gentleman of the Prince's bedchamber would go.

"Are you ready?" she cried. "Then come—over the hills and far away!"

The coach jolted along to Albemarle Street. Already there were little knots of people in the streets to watch the party. The Prince of Wales turned out of the Palace! Who ever heard of such a thing! These Germans had no family feeling. They didn't want Germans here. King Charles had always been jovial and kind to members of his family. It had been a pleasure to see him with his little nieces. And his brother James had doted on Anne and Mary; Anne's love for her only child who lived past his infancy was quite touching. But German George had been really cruel to the poor Princess. Not only had he taken her daughters from her but he had separated her from her newly born baby.

Family bickering was one thing, but to drive a woman from her children, soon after she's risen from childbed was real cruelty.

"Damn George," said the people. "Damn the German. And God bless the Prince and Princess of Wales."

In Grantham House the Princess was in a state of collapse. Her women got her quickly to bed and feared that she would not recover.

The Prince sat beside her bed covering his face with his hands and crying quietly.

Rumours that the Prince and Princess were ill circulated in the streets and little knots of people stood outside Grantham's house waiting for news of them while in St. James's the King gave orders that any foreign ambassadors who visited the Prince would not be received at his Court.

And now, he said, that the troublesome Prince is no longer with us let us enjoy some peace.

A new drama soon arose. The newly born child, deprived of its mother, became ill. The nurses whom the King had commanded to care for the little boy at first assured themselves that this was nothing but a normal childish ailment, but as the child grew more wan and fretful they could no longer deceive themselves and sent for the physicians, who, when they saw the child, decided that the King should be informed, without delay, of its condition.

"Well," said George gruffly, "what do you recommend?"