By George! What's Charlotte's Beef?

Previously in By George! Mr. Al left a little cliff hanger regarding the marriage of Princess Charlotte. With her father, George IV, pushing one of his drinking buddies on her and her mother sensing and opportunity to get under George’s skin, Charlotte is certainly put on the spot.

While desiring to remain in England was the public face of Princess Charlotte’s refusal to marry William, there were other issues as well. Williams drinking was but one. One of Charlotte’s biggest beefs was one that had long bedeviled her mother. She wasn’t getting invited to the really interesting parties. Oh, there were teas with the Queen, things of that sort, but, dammit! Why was William being invited to the hot ticket parties and not taking her along? A word from him and she could easily be included. But he wouldn’t do it. He obviously didn’t care.

On June 10 1814, Prince William got stink faced at the Ascot Races and returned to London hanging on to the outside of a stage couch. Charlotte was appalled. Why didn’t he invite her? Everyone in the Smart Set would have been at Ascot. And Williams behavior. Why, he was…acting like her father when he was that age! The wedding was definitely off.

To make sure it was officially off she had a meeting with William at Warwick House on June 16. She stated, in the presence of a witness, that she had no desire to wed him. The marriage was off and he could do as he pleased. He “left the house in much agitation.” To make sure he got the message, she put it in writing. “I now consider our engagement to be totally and forever at an end.” She wrote in a lengthy blow-off letter.

In the letter she mentioned as a reason the condition of her mother’s status at court. Mom needed her, she couldn’t think of getting married while mom was being used as a royal doormat. By George! Mom turned out to be useful after all! William informed his parents of Charlotte’s breaking the engagement and in a parting letter told Charlotte that she would have to break the news to her dad. He really didn’t feel it was his place to do that.

Father…Right… She must tell father. She did, in a letter to which he responded that he had received her letter with “astonishment,grief and concern.” She knew there had to be more to dad’s reaction than that. He was the one who really wanted this marriage. There had to be more. There was.

The Prince Regent believed the engagement could yet be salvaged. He was more determined than ever to do so when rumors reached him of clandestine meetings between Charlotte and certain German princes. The worst of which, in the Prince Regents mind, was Prince Augustus of Prussia. A man who was too handsome by half and a notorious ladies man. Reliable sources informed him that Miss Knight had actually facilitated two meetings between Augustus and Charlotte. Meetings in which they had been left alone. In the same room! At the same time! Dad had a plan to deal with that.

Daddy sent the Bishop of Salisbury to have a chat with his wayward offspring. The Bishop was Charlotte’s former preceptor. She couldn’t possibly ignore a bishop and former teacher, could she? Yes she could. Well, sorta. The Bishop told her to behave herself. She said she would. He told her to write to her father and apologize for her outlandish behavior and beg his forgiveness. She said she would. Also, she would inform dad that she had reconsidered and would marry the Prince of Orange after all. Um…okay, she would definitely write to dad. Promise. Cross her heart and hope to die.

The Bishop left Warwick House, his work there was done. Charlotte wrote to daddy at once. “So sorry to have offended you, won’t do it again.” Not a line, not a word about reconsidering the engagement. Two days passed without a word from Carlton House. This was bad. Charlotte knew it was the calm before the storm. She even warned her servants that they would probably be sacked and replaced with servants loyal only to daddy. How right she was.

At six o’clock on the evening of July 12, daddy, with the good Bishop riding shotgun and a gaggle of servants bringing up the rear, stormed Warwick House. Leaving the Bishop and servants downstairs, the Prince Regent stomped up to his daughters sitting room. Charlotte was lying on a sofa, crying her eyes out. This didn’t deter him for a moment. He launched into a lecture his daughter wouldn’t soon forget.

Did she give her poor father even a moments thought? Did she understand what he had been through recently? Good God! A royal visit that should have been among the crowning achievements of his Regency, turned into an unmitigated disaster by the Tsar and his hell-spawned sister. And her mother, who’s behavior was no better than that of a street harlot, getting standing ovations at the opera while he was subjected to catcalls and hissing. In front of guests no less. Why, he couldn’t even go out in the royal carriage without a drunken London mob flinging horse droppings at it.

And now his daughter, his only child, not only saying “no” to a very advantageous marriage, one, he was quick to point out, she had previously agreed to, but to reject the Prince of Orange in favor of a Prussian rake who had set his highly polished cavalry boots down on the floors of half the boudoirs of London. Hell, given that bounders reputation, he probably didn’t even bother to remove his boots!

No! There was going to be a new order in Charlotte’s life, starting today! All of her servants had been replaced. She would go immediately to Carlton House,there she would remain for five days. She would then be taken to Cranbourne Lodge in Windsor Forest. Once there she would see no one except the Queen, and that would only happen once a week.

Dad went to the head of the stairs and called for the Bishop. The three of them remained behind closed doors for fifteen minutes. The doors opened again when Charlotte burst from the room and dropped to her knees in front of Miss Knight crying “God Almighty! Give me patience!” Miss Knight could no longer help her. Princess Charlotte decided then and there that she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

– Mr. Al