After all we’ve learned about Prinny in the last few weeks, I don’t think anything in this week’s installment is going to surprise anyone. I can clearly see the workings of Georgian and Regency society, and could easily work it into one of my books. Thank’s Mr. Al for another fascinating look at Prince George IV.
Poor Prinny! Didn’t anyone care how HE felt? It would not seem so because he immediately became a basket case. He would confine himself to bed claiming a high fever. The cure for that, at his insistence, was bleeding, with lancets and leeches. To replace all that lost blood, he drank large quantities of wine. When that didn’t do the trick, he switched to hard liquor. His public behavior was as predictable as it was embarrassing.
He attended a ball where his behavior became so wild that, “some of his companions called for his carriage and almost forced him away.” So it went for several weeks. In one particularly nasty episode at a ball the Prince sat, goggle-eyed and falling down drunk, in a chair next to the dining room door. After dinner was called he roughly groped every woman who walked past him. Which was every woman in attendance since these ladies did not dare offend the Prince of Wales by skipping dinner.
This display of temporary insanity moved Mrs Fitzherbert not a whit. It had finally occurred to her that her hubby was the source of all this mischief. The bastard had allowed her good name to be flung upon the dung heap of public opinion for the sake of getting his allowance increased.
And she was right. Needless to say, the Prince didn’t see it that way. As time went on she began to relent in her hard feelings about her sorta husband. One thing that went a long way toward that was the totally unexpected reception she experienced among high society. Officially, they were not married. But everyone began treating her as if she were the Princess of Wales.
Even the Duchess of Gordon, a staunch Tory and close friend of the Queen, announced that she believed that Fox had lied. She invited Mrs Fitzherbert and the Prince to a ball. The Prince, sobered up since his reconciliation, was seen dancing with Mrs Fitzherbert. Everyone was charmed. Except the Archbishop of Canterbury. He thought it was “very odd.”
What he didn’t understand was that it was a ” lady thing” Wrote Edmond Malone to his friend Lord Clarmont, “I do not know what rules the ladies govern themselves by. She (Mrs Fitzherbert) is courted and queens it as much as ever.” Men! They just don’t get it. And how much money did it take to get the Prince to accept the besmirching of Mrs Fitzherberts good name?
Weeeeell…an additional 10,000 pounds on top of his original 50,000. That would come from the Civil List. Parliament voted 160,000 to pay his debts, plus an additional 60,000 to put the finishing touches on Carlton House. And not a moment too soon, because he started getting some big ideas about his “marine pavilion” in Brighton.
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