By George! The King Just Keeps on Going, and Going, and Going…

What could Mr. Al have been alluding to last week when he said the Prince had shocked the King? Let’s find out. Take it away, Mr. Al.

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As dismaying as it may have been for the King to know that the Prince’s private life was anything but, he most certainly expected the details of his own life to remain private. Imagine then, his shock upon discovering that his correspondence with the Prince on the subject of the Prince’s promotion to general appeared in not one, but three London papers.

The prince had gotten the idea into his head that the public would rally to his cause if they could see just how unfairly he was being treated. Surely, even the most lowly of hod carriers would agree with him that because he had been born the Prince of Wales, he deserved to order men on the field of battle. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the Prince Really Did Not Get It.

He had to shop the letters around. The Times wouldn’t touch them with a pair of tongs. The Duke of Northumberland got wind of his project and tried to warn him off. You can’t publish dad’s private correspondence, he told him, and expect nothing to happen. He’s the King! You are not well liked! Don’t do it! The Prince would not be deterred. Every right thinking person would be just as outraged as himself once they knew the details of the king’s horrible injustice.

The public did not rally to his cause. The King was fit to be tied. How in God’s name did his private correspondence end up in the public prints? The Prince had no idea. Some sticky-fingered servant must have stolen the letters while he was passed out in the fireplace and sold them to Fleet Street. Yeah…yeah, that was it! You can’t trust anyone nowadays. Needless to say, the King did not believe him.

After this incident it took all of Pitts powers of persuasion to get the King to an interview with the Prince. It was a matter of State, after all. Personalities, as annoying as they may be, should not enter into the picture. His Majesty reluctantly, very reluctantly, agreed. But the Prince never was fully forgiven for this breech of His Majesties trust.

Now the only problem was that the Prince had, once again, found a reason to stay away. This time it was because of the Kings alleged worsening condition. He had been told by Colonel McMahon that the King was completely off his nut and being very nasty to the Queen. His Majesty had declared, publicly, that he felt nothing but the “greatest aversion” toward her, that he was going to “put her aside” and fix up Great Lodge in Windsor Park so he could keep Lady Pembroke there as his mistress. Or…perhaps the Duchess of Rutland. Or…Lady Georgiana Buckley. Whomever.

Apparently the Prince found this distressing. Considering his lifestyle, he shouldn’t have, but there it is. The Prince was further told that dad had locked himself in a room with a housemaid for forty-five minutes. No one was sure what had taken place during that time, but everyone suspected the worst. That was enough for the Prince. Dad was a total loony-tune and not fit to receive company.

When the King sent him a note, telling him how much he was looking forward to their little chat, the Prince responded with a note of his own, begging off the interview with the excuse that he was having tummy troubles. He needed to stay close to a chamber pot because, well, because he had to. That’s all. This was mostly true. Said a witness, the thought of facing his father had filled the Prince with “extreme agitation,” and this, in turn, brought on an “attack of diarrhea.”

When the King received the letter, after seeing that it came from Carlton House did not immediately open it “evidently seeking to command himself.” Once he did read it, he said aloud, “The Prince is ill.” He then went on to speculate that the cause of his illness was his fear of having to face him after that nasty business with his letters. Dad wasn’t nearly as far gone as the Prince hoped.

Although he did not fall ill to the extent of his first illness, the King was far from well. There were reports from Weymouth that the King, while aboard the royal yacht, launched into a violent tirade against Roman Catholics. Everyone on board was stunned as His Majesty stomped up and down the main deck of the ship, cursing the Pope, English and Irish Catholics, Whigs and anyone else who presumed to thwart the authority of the crown.

The Prince thought it wise to postpone his interview once more. At length, the family prevailed upon him to get it over with. In mid-November, accompanied by the Queen, all the Princesses sans his wife, the Dukes of Cumberland, Kent and Sussex, the Prince met with the King. Everyone thought it went as well as could be expected. Except the Prince, who didn’t care for the fact that dad dominated the conversation.

He also did not care for the fact that dad seemed to want to talk about scandals at inordinate length. “Lady So and so is having it off with Lord Brickbats! Isn’t that SHOCKING? And, of course, Lord Brickbats is sireing a whole wagonload of bastards with the maidservants! Isn’t that FRIGHTFUL?” The whole conversation made the Prince squirmy. He thought dad was mad as a hatter.

The Morning Post wrote; “From the result of this endearing interview which has taken place, we are induced to entertain the fond hope that a most sublime display of patriotic cooperation will ere long be presented to an anxious public.” Yeah, right! To put the best possible face on the occasion, the whole family spent the weekend together at Windsor. The Princesses were pleased as punch to have mom, dad and the Prince under the same roof if only for a little while.
The Prince, on the other hand, “was evidently very much out of spirits and in ill-humor.” As indeed one would expect him to be after learning that the King was spending more time with Princess Caroline than ever. The more so since the King was not siding with the Prince over the matter of his daughter’s upbringing.

It was the Prince’s ardent desire to keep Charlotte as far away from her mother as possible. The King, although he did not hold the Princess of Wales to be the amoral trollop that her husband believed her to be, decided to calm the waters by giving Charlotte a semi-household of her own within Windsor. She would live and study there from June through January. The rest of the year she would reside at Warwick House with her governess and servants.

Mom, who was living at Blackheath, would be allowed to visit on a regular basis. The King allotted 12,000 pounds a year for his beloved granddaughter’s household. The Princess of Wales, by comparison, received 5,000 from her husband. He soon reduced this to 4,000, claiming his own reduced allowance as the reason. The Prince wanted to cut it even further. In fact, he would have cut her off entirely if he could have gotten away with it.

Ugly rumors were making the rounds. Rumors about Princess Caroline’s behavior with a growing number of young men.

– Mr. Al