The Prince and the Quakeress - Plaidy Jean - Страница 27

‘Support! What support?’

‘He is the Prince and he has his following. His mother’s friends would be ready to uphold him.’

‘Who is she? Fred’s widow. I am the King of this country and I’ll be obeyed.’

This was a difficult task, Waldegrave realized; and he secretly thought that the sooner he was released from his position of tutor to the Prince of Wales and chief King’s spy in the Princess’s household the better.

‘If a vote were taken on the matter of the Prince’s marriage the result might well be in his favour.’

‘But I say he shall marry the girl. He’s no longer a boy. He’s proved that, hasn’t he? Sniffing round Markets! If his grandmother were alive. Ah, there was a woman...’

Waldegrave allowed his mind to wander for five minutes. The King must be made to see that he could not force the Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel marriage just yet. The Prince was only seventeen. It was another year before he would officially come of age. The old King was well over seventy; everyone had expected him to die at least ten years ago. He could not last much longer; in fact, when he went into one of his frequent rages they expected him to have an apoplectic fit on the spot. With the purple colour in his cheeks, his prominent eyes bulging and veins knotting at his temples he really looked as though he were on the verge of a stroke. And there was young George, seventeen years old, with his fresh pink skin and his blue eyes almost as prominent as his grandfather’s but placid, and the same heavy jaw, though in his case, sometimes sullen, where the King’s was more likely to be bellicose.

How could Waldegrave explain to the King that ambitious ministers would be more likely to support the young man who must certainly ascend the throne in a few years’ time rather than an old one who must most certainly soon leave it.

But perhaps the King saw that, for when he had finished the five minute eulogy on the dead Queen, he said: ‘I heard a rumour that that woman has her eyes on Saxe-Gotha. I tell you this Waldegrave, there’ll be no Saxe-Gotha woman for my grandson. I’ll not have our family tainted by that lot. And I’ll tell you this too, Waldegrave: there’s madness there. I shall stand firmly against any of her plots in that direction. No Saxe-Gotha here. Do you understand?’

Waldegrave replied that he understood His Majesty perfectly.

No Saxe-Gotha! And no Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel either.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales was satisfactorily shelved for a while.

• • •

The King was alarmed. Foreign affairs were at a very low ebb. England’s place in the world was insignificant. There was one man who railed against this with a passionate fury so intense that it had impressed the King. He thought a great deal about William Pitt. There was a man who impressed him deeply. Pitt was a man of words—the finest orator of his day. He could turn a phrase and bring tears to the eyes; he could present an argument and convince.

When he had been young and lusty the King had preferred to live in Hanover rather than in England; but when had been a still younger man he had professed a great love for England but that was only because his father had hated it and he automatically loved all that his father hated. In the days when he had first come to England with Caroline he used to say: ‘If you vould vin my favour call me an Englishman.’ He had always spoken in English then–with a marked German accent, of course—but that was because his father George I had refused to learn a word of the language. But when he became King he felt it undignified to speak a language which his subjects spoke so much better, and everyone about him had to speak in French or German. Then, of course, he had made several attempts to sacrifice England to Hanover which Sir Robert Walpole had prevented.

But that was the past. He was an old man—he was a vain old man—and no King, particularly one who has always made a semblance of virtue, wanted to leave his country in a worse state than that in which he found it.

‘If Valpole vere here,’ he mused, lapsing into English. If my dear Caroline vere here...’

Those days were past and Newcastle was no Walpole. But there was Pitt.

He thought of Pitt. The orator, the man of war, who deplored the desultory state of Britain’s arms. Pitt had grandiose schemes. He talked of Empire—and by God, how he talked! No one could talk like Mr. Pitt. He could make people see a country astride the world, leading the world, in wealth, in commerce. That was Mr. Pitt’s dream of England, and he wanted a chance to make it become a reality.

He was called a war-monger. Such men always were. Did am man think that great rewards could be gained without effort. If so, that man was a fool.

The King decided to send for Mr. Pitt.

In the presence of such a man even a King must feel insignificant. George usually hated to feel insignificant; that was why he never liked tall men. But this was different. George was not thinking so much of the King of England as of England itself. Some instinct told him that Mr. Pitt was the man; and if he were tall of stature, imposing in personality, on this occasion, so much the better.

His manner was deferential—almost servile—another quality which pleased the King. There was nothing arrogant about this man in the presence of royalty, although he could be haughty enough with those whom he considered beneath him. He was vain in the extreme; he held himself erect; he had a little head, thin face and long aquiline nose, heavy lidded eyes...hawk’s eyes. He was like an actor on a stage, thought the King; he might have stepped right out of a play; and when he spoke it might have been Garrick or Quin speaking; the beautiful cadences of his magnificent voice filled the apartment and demanded respect.

There was greatness in this man, the King believed. I could work with him as I used to with Robert Walpole. I wish the Queen were here. She would agree with me—or I would soon persuade her to.

She had always believed that England should be great; she and Walpole together and himself, of course. What a triumvirate. And now it should be Pitt and the King.

The King begged Mr. Pitt to be seated, and for a few moments he exchanged pleasantries with the minister. Pitt had only two or three years before married—rather late in life, for he was now close on fifty. He had married well, of course, everything Mr. Pitt did would become his dignity—Hester Grenville whose mother had been connected with the Earls of Temple. Pitt seemed happy in his marriage and had a daughter, Hester, at this time.

The King came to the point and they discussed the affairs of the Kingdom. Now Pitt glowed with purpose.

He believed in expansion—in Empire. England was a small country. His Majesty would be aware that the population of Great Britain in this year 1757 was somewhere in the region of seven million persons; now they must compare this population with their great enemy France which had one of twenty-seven millions. The difference appalled Mr. Pitt. But Great Britain was two small islands, and the whole world was open to us, and we must go out and make it ours.

These sentiments uttered in that deeply sonorous voice, with those magnificent gestures echoing round the audience chamber thrilled the King. He believed Mr. Pitt; he was inspired by Mr. Pitt; and he wanted Mr. Pitt to bring such glory to this country, of which for so many years he had been a reluctant ruler, that on his leaving it, it would be the richest, the most powerful, the most formidable in the world.

‘There have been defeats both on land and sea,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘Defeats to make an Englishman shudder. We have been at fault. We have lacked leadership.’

The hawk’s eyes were studying the King’s face. This could he touching on a dangerous point. Cumberland, the King’s son, and the one of his offspring he came as near to loving as he could anyone, had been appointed commander of the Army not because of his military genius but because he was the King’s son. Culloden, where he had scored an undoubted victory, was a blot on English military history; and the Dukes record in the field had not been conspicuously successful since. If he was to achieve his purpose he wanted the right man doing the right job irrespective of his position; a soldier from the ranks who was a true leader should have as much chance as a King’s son who fancied playing at soldiers.