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 Prince’s undies in a bunch. He had had a falling out with William’s dad a few years before and the wound had yet to scab over, let alone heal. He sent the Queen one of his typically overblown letters full of woe and the perfidy of false friends. He asked her to speak to dad about a promotion and a posting that would show the world the great general he knew himself to be.

The Queen wrote back that she was very sorry for the situation, it really broke her heart to see her boy so disappointed, BUT…His fathers mind was made up and he had the whole military establishment behind him on this one. The Prince of Wales would never be a general. She went on to warn him off going to the Whigs in hope of forcing a political confrontation with the Crown over the matter.

She knew her son and she knew he was hurt enough to do something stupid. Using the Whigs to force the issue was his only option if dad wouldn’t go quietly. She told him in no uncertain terms that if he did that there would hell to pay. Henry Dundas, the Secretary for War wrote to the Prince telling him the same thing. “It is impossible that your Royal Highness, after a moments cool reflection on the subject, can put any consideration whatever in competition with those important interests which are now at stake.”

Hoe your own row, boy. Things in Europe are bad enough without you busting open a political hornet’s nest on the Home Front.

The Prince’s good friend, the Earl of Moira wrote that he hoped that the Prince would one day get to attain the rank he desired, but begged him that he should “not let any fretfulness seduce him into the oppositions camp if His Majesty persisted in rejecting the application.”

The Prince backed off the idea of political confrontation. That left him no option but to beg, plead and whine, in person and by letter. No good, the answer was the same. One day, His Majesty informed him, you will be King. That is a much greater responsibility than being a general. For the sake of the Realm, you must remain at home. He added that should the French invade, he knew his boy would do a splendid job protecting his family.

The Prince’s brother, the Duke of York, had been promoted to Field Marshal. The Prince approached him with a view to his putting in the good word for him. The Duke promised to do so. When nothing came of it the Prince had a Royal Blowout with the Duke, accusing him of not doing enough. The Duke responded that if the Prince weren’t such a giddy, drunken prat perhaps dad might take him more seriously. Or words to that effect.
The Duke and Prince were not on speaking terms for quite a while after that.

The Prince was nothing if not a Renaissance man. He held wide interests and took pleasure in displaying his good taste, his interest in the arts and sciences and his general approbation of learning. There were wide interests in his personal life as well. The ones not connected with drinking, gambling and pissing away the taxpayers money involved women.

As might be expected of any gentleman of his rank, he had his passing fancies. The occasional romp in a dark corner of Vauxhall while out carousing with his pals. These things barely merited a footnote in the Prince’s history. Some of the other women, however, were somewhat more noteworthy. Not least because of the beastly way he treated them and their reaction to it.

For example, you, gentle reader, might like to know what happened to Lady Jersey. Well… It would seem that not long after the birth of his daughter, the Princess Charlotte, the Prince fell ill. While the illness was of short duration, it was intense enough that the Prince was sure he was on death’s door. To prepare himself he penned a rather longish Last Will and Testament.

It came in at around three thousand words. The remarkable part was that he left all his worldly goods and property to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Then, as an afterthought, he wrote on the back of this document; “I forgot to mention that the jewels which she who is called The Princess of Wales wears are mine, having been bought with my own money, and therefore…I bequeath them to my infant daughter as her own property and to her, who is called the Princess of Wales, I leave one shilling.”

No big surprises there. It did show, however, that the Prince’s thoughts were fixating once more on Mrs. Fitzherbert. It also showed that the bloom was off the lily as far as Lady Jersey was concerned. He left her nothing. Not even a shilling. Since the Prince didn’t die, the will didn’t come into play.

For roughly three years, 1796 to 1799, the relationship with Lady Jersey became more a game of cat and mouse than one of illicit snugglebunnydom. Even someone as easily manipulated as the Prince had his limits. Of course, the Prince could hardly be insensible to the fact that Lady Jersey was becoming the most hated woman in England.

The more time he spent with her, the more popular Princess Caroline became. This was a “rankle” he could not tolerate. Being the Prince, however, the only way he knew of for dealing with unwanted females was to ignore them until they went away. Lady Jersey would NOT be ignored.

– Mr. Al