Categotry Archives: Mr. Al
By George! How to Lose Friends and Make Enemies
What was happening in the world at large while Prince George, Princess Caroline, and Lady Jersey did their very public dance? Napoleon The situation in Europe was tense. Surprise! It was the French, again. Double surprise! The crowned heads of Europe were on pins and needles. The Prince could not help but notice that several junior colonels, some very junior, had been promoted to major-general. Among that number was nineteen year old Prince William of Gloucester. That really got the […]
By George! How to Engineer a Royal Reconciliation.
So, in last week’s installment of By George! George III came up with a solution to all George IV’s problems. I shudder to think. The Prince must have known that his wife had the Kings ear, if not his sympathy. And Caroline gave His Majesty an earful regarding Lady Jersey. The King didn’t need to be convinced of Lady Jersey’s disruptive influence. The Queen had been relating stories to him gathered from a wide cross section of sources. For His […]
By George! What is a Prince to Do?
When we left off last week, Lady Jersey had received the cut direct in a way even she could not ignore. What did Prince George think of it? If the Prince believed this whole fuss would eventually go away if he kept his head down, he like Lady Jersey, was in for a nasty shock. The Prince’s behavior was beginning to draw public criticism onto the whole family. Princes and princesses, the King and Queen, were all taking heat for […]
By George! What Goes Around Comes Around.
During the course of the tempestuous relationship between Prince George and Princess Caroline, Lady Jersey has been a bone of contention. Let’s see how she comes out. Caroline had a small problem with the Prince’s document. By and large, it seemed to point to Princess Caroline as the source of all the rankles and disquiet. Needless to say, this was not her view. As if she wanted that bitch Lady Jersey in charge of her bedchamber! No. She could […]
By George! Are They Really That Happy?
To all appearances, the mismatch between Prince George and Princess Caroline looked to have worked out. Appearances can be deceiving. Despite happy reports from Brighton, things were far from well by the time the new princess arrived. For one thing, the Prince had taken up with Lady Jersey again. This probably came as no surprise to those who knew the Prince best. It did not help matters at all that Caroline’s reaction to this was to heap verbal abuse on […]
By George! It's a Wedding… er, Another Wedding.
Regardless of all his misgivings, Prince George went ahead and married his cousin Princess Caroline. The Big Day was 8 April 1795. The ceremony was held in the Chapel Royal at St. James Palace. The Princesses dress was so heavily embroidered that the weight of it almost caused her to fall over. The bridegroom was about ready to fall over also, but not from the weight of his clothing. The bride was led into the chapel by the Duke of […]
By George! Who Do They Like the Best?
Princess Caroline and Prince George were primed to get along like oil and water, thanks to Lady Jersey. Let’s see what happens when they meet. Take it away Mr. Al. It did not come as a shock to Lord Malmesbury that Princess Caroline’s behavior at dinner was everything he feared it would be. That didn’t make being embarrassed to within an inch of his life easier to suffer through. The Princess forgot every social rule dad had ordered her to […]
By George! Welcome to England, Highness-To-Be.
If Princess Caroline needs a moral compass which the dissolute Prince George isn’t able to provide, what is to become of her? Let’s see how she is greeted on arrival. While Princess Caroline was underway, her reception was taking shape. The Princesses arrival would be a big deal, of course. It had to be done right, as befitting a new Princess of Wales. And not just the public functions. Her household had to be put in order. A million details […]
By George! What's an Escort to Do?
Lord Malmesbury was sent to Germany to fetch Princess Caroline for Prince George. Imagine his plight when he got to know her. His Lordship was able to observe the Princess at close quarters on a number of occasions. Her behavior was uniform throughout. Uniformly bad. This is what His Lordship wrote in his diary. “No judgment! Caught by the first impression, led by the first impulse…loving to talk, and prone to confide and make missish friendships that last twenty-four […]
By George! Will She Do?
As Mr. Al said in last week’s installment of By George!, Princess Caroline was not at all suitable for the role of wife to Prince George, yet she quickly became the front runner. Wonder how? If Princess Caroline, of all the available German Princesses, was the least suitable, how did it come to be that she won the “Marry The Prince of Wales Derby?” Consider this; The Prince was easily influenced by those close to him. The closer and more […]
By George! Enter Princess Caroline.
If Mrs. Fitzherbert is not the perfect wife for Prince George, then who is? Up until now the Prince had shown a true talent for making bad decisions. Faced with the necessity of getting really and truly married, one of the biggest decisions of his life, he allowed his talent for making bad decisions to flower into genius. Princess Caroline of Brunswick was so astoundingly wrong for the Prince on nearly every count that one suspects the Prince of […]
By George! She's Had Enough.
Even a Saint has her limits. Let’s see where Mrs. Fitzherberts are and what she does about it. While Mrs. Fitzherbert had been willing to look the other way on most of the Prince’s affairs, indeed, his romp with Mrs. Crouch and entourage was treated “with ridicule”; one affair caused her to seriously reconsider the whole relationship. The Countess of Jersey was the daughter of an Anglican bishop; himself descended from a long line of famous churchmen. She was married […]
By George! What a Fine, Upstanding Husband He Makes.
Last week George was having money problems. Can you think of any problems his wife might be having? For over a year, (1793) the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert had been growing ever more distant. I think it would be more accurate to say that the Prince had grown more distant. Or, at least, more insensitive. They were fighting frequently. After one such fight, Mrs. Fitzherbert fled the room with “angry tears.” Said the Prince to a dinner guest who witnessed […]
By George! Can You Spare Some Change?
It seems George IV never made it a day without some sort of money trouble. Let’s see how close he can come to the national debt. Previously in By George! Next in By George! The Duke of York’s solution was to get married. While my loyal readers know that The Prince had already gotten married, they also know that it wasn’t the kind of marriage that anyone other that The Prince, his sorta-wife and their intimate circle of drunken reprobates […]
By George! He Was Born to Lead.
When we left of last week, George IV was about to get his heart’s desire. Is anyone besides me wincing? It seems that The Prince had been after dad about military service for some time. Most of his brothers were getting to cover themselves in…um…glory…after a fashion…so why did he have to sit on the sidelines? There were some very good reasons for doing so. One, he was a spoiled, drunken womanizer with the impulse control of a three year […]
