By George! Life Must Go On, For Some

In last weeks installment of Mr. Al’s in-depth examination of George IV, long-time soul mate, Mrs. Fitzherbert threw in the towel. Do you think the prince noticed?

Several events in 1810 were soon to overshadow whatever pain the Prince might have experienced at the loss of Mrs. Fitzherbert. In May of that year, the Duke of Cumberland, “Alias, the Black Sheep” as his brother, the Duke of Kent referred to him, had involved himself in a nasty scandal.

The Duke of Cumberland, like all his brothers except for the Prince, had served overseas in a prestigious Calvary regiment. He had been severely wounded in battle, a nasty head wound that disfigured him and a wound to his left side that left him unable to use his left arm for months. He never did regain full use of it. The Duke’s reputation had been unsavory all along, a disfiguring facial wound made him downright sinister.

His disposition had not exactly been sunny even before his military service. He was described by one historian as “an intelligent man with a cruel, sardonic humor.” “Very sarcastic.” Was the Prince’s view. “Very comical though very impudent.” Said the Duke of Clarence. While the Prince seemed genuinely fond of him, he could hardly overlook the fact that Cumberland was a Tory of the most reactionary kind and a fierce supporter of his hell-spawned wife, Princess Caroline.

When dad finally allowed the Duke to return to England to convalesce, months after he had been wounded, he was a deeply changed man. Need I add, not for the better. He was allowed to remain in the army; in fact, he received various “highly lucrative military appointments.” What the Duke wanted was a command on the continent against Napoleon. This would never happen and it made the Duke a very bitter man indeed.

It sure didn’t help the Duke’s rep that the Prince himself warned all of their sisters not to allow themselves to be alone with him for any length of time. This leads me to the most notorious story involving the Duke. To wit, that he impregnated one of his sisters. The princess in question, Sophia, did indeed have a child out of wedlock. However, there is much evidence that the father was one of dad’s equerries and NOT her brother. That said, Sophia was the Duke’s favorite sibling and the Prince was not alone in believing the Duke had rather unnatural inclinations toward his sisters.

There is ample evidence that many people, including his family, were ready to believe the worst about the Duke. What happened in May of 1810 only confirmed their suspicions. On the morning of the 31st of that month, Joseph Sellis, the Duke’s Corsican valet, was found dead in his room with his throat cut. Such was the Dukes reputation that before the body was cold stories were out that the Duke had done the deed.

One rumor was that the Duke killed him when he rejected the Duke’s homosexual advances. Another was that Sellis caught the Duke with his wife and Cumberland murdered him to avoid a scandal. Given the times and the behavior of his brothers, sleeping with a servant’s wife wouldn’t be the sort of scandal that would provoke murder to keep it quiet. Also, there is no evidence, at least that I have seen, that would point to the Duke being gay.

The physical evidence points to the Duke being attacked by Sellis with a saber. Why he did so would never be known because, again, the physical evidence points to Sellis committing suicide with a razor as the palace guards closed in on his room. Space does not permit me to reproduce extracts from the official inquiry that point to the Duke’s innocence; suffice it to say that he was found innocent but his reputation was such that many refused to believe it.

No sooner had this problem been dealt with than another arose. Princess Amelia, the King’s favorite child, fell seriously ill. Amelia’s health had never been great. From the age of fifteen onward, when she had barely survived contracting tuberculosis, she was sick with something or another. What undoubtedly made her health worse was the fact that she was treated by 18th century doctors.

Leeches, “purgatives”, bleeding, blistering, (Yes, the patient would be deliberately burned. The “disease” would be drawn into the resulting blisters, which would then be lanced and, hence, released from the body. Did it hurt? Is the Pope Catholic? Fortunately, Amelia received large doses of laudanum and alcohol for the pain, which was constant. She was widely admired for the fact that she didn’t complain about the pain.

Amelia’s health affected the Prince greatly. Of all his siblings, she was his favorite. Probably the only thing he and his father agreed on. Amelia, for her part, loved the Prince as her favorite brother and was delighted when he would write to her and send her small gifts. For one thing, Amelia ably served as the Prince’s eyes and ears in “the Windsor Nunnery” as the girls called their home with the Queen.

Amelia was more than happy to keep the Prince up to date on what Her Majesty was thinking and feeling. She was also more than happy to tell the Prince what she and her sisters were experiencing at the hands of mom. BOREDOM. And when they got tired of that, more boredom. With a side order of boredom and a boredom chaser. If they wanted to do ANYTHING it had to
be approved by the Queen beforehand. And it better be mind numbingly boring or Her Majesty would reject it out of hand. What became apparent to all the royal children was that mom and dad had no idea what to do with their children once they stopped being children. The King and Queen reacted the only way they knew how. They continued to treat their children like children long after they became adults. This bred profound resentment in all of their children, but at least the boys had lives, and households, of their own.

The girls were never, ever allowed out of the palace without it becoming an event that had to be planned weeks or months in advance. And the girls, being girls, had to be protected from evil men. That would be guys their own age. As a result, almost the only men the princesses ever met were 40 or 50 years their senior.

Be that as it may, Amelia fell seriously ill in the summer of 1810. By the first week of November, the doctors finally managed to kill her off. Amelia’s death started a cascade of events that brought a crisis to her family and her country.

– Mr. Al