"So your mother thinks. She has the strongest objections to either of these young females."
"It would not matter who they were. I consider myself married already."
Bute nodded sympathetically. So the boy was still held in the Quaker web. But give him a little time.
"Do not be unduly alarmed. I am sure that if you firmly decide not to be forced into marriage by your grandfather you will stay free."
"You will help?"
"Have I not sworn always to do so?"
"Oh, thank you... thank you. I don"t know what I should do without you."
"Why should you?" Bute laughed breezily. "When you are King all you will have to do is to make me your chief minister and I shall always be at your side."
"Of course, that is what I intend to do."
Oh, triumph! thought Bute. If you could hear that Newcastle...Pitt... Fox... you would shiver with apprehension. The old man cannot last much longer surely. And then this boy will be King and that means that I and the Princess will in fact rule this land. What a dazzling prospect for an ambitious man!
"I shall keep Your Majesty to that." Spoken playfully to hide the sealing of a promise beneath a jocular guise.
"Oh hush! Remember the King still lives."
"G.o.d save the King!" cried Bute, and whispered: "And in particular His Majesty King George III."
George smiled faintly and was immediately anxious. "So you understand that I could not consider marriage... any marriage. I am morally bound to Hannah. I want no one else."
"I understand. But have no fear. The King may attempt to force this marriage on you, but we will stand firm. He needs the consent of Parliament, and members will be afraid to give that consent, if you are firm enough. They remember that his star is setting and yours is about to rise. You must remember it, too. Do not give way easily to anything. Stand firm. Remember that any day you could become King."
"I do not like my grandfather. He is a disagreeable man and since he struck me I fear I can never feel what I ought towards him. But I do not care to speak of him as a dead man when he is still alive. He has as much right to live as I have... that is how I see it."
"A right and n.o.ble sentiment worthy of Your Maj... Your Highness. But I am warning you. Stand firm. Declare your refusal to take one of these girls and your grandfather is powerless."
"How can I thank you!"
"Oh," laughed Bute. "Don"t forget the promises you have made to me."
"I swear I never will."
Bute was able to tell the Princess that he had persuaded the Prince to stand out against the Brunswick-Wolfenbttel proposition.
"We have nothing to fear from St James"s Palace. The King will see that he cannot rule the Prince from there. We are his guardians and we must see that it remains so."
The King"s face was purple with rage.
"So the puppy won"t be bewolfenbttled, he says. I"ll teach him whether to defy me. I say he shall be bewolfenbttled, and like it. I"ll have him yelping to me to hurry on the marriage, I promise you, Waldegrave. He doesn"t want to marry? Well, it is his duty to marry, and I am going to see he does his duty."
"Your Majesty, the Prince would have some support in Parliament."
"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-Wolfenbttel 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-Wolfenbttel 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 pa.s.sionate 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 l.u.s.ty the King had preferred to live in Hanover rather than England; but when he 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 G.o.d, 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 any 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 be touching on a dangerous point. c.u.mberland, 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 Duke"s 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.
Mr Pitt had no intention of stating this to the King at this moment but it was one of the rules he would adhere to and he would have his way. He was not dedicating his talents to the service of a royal family but to the greatness of England.
"It is a state of affairs which will have to be carefully overhauled... without delay," said Mr Pitt.
"You know why I have summoned you here, Mr Pitt," said the King. "It is to offer you the post of Secretary of State."
"Your Majesty is gracious to me and I accept the post."
"Newcastle continues as First Lord of the Treasury. This is agreeable to you, Mr Pitt?"
It was agreeable. Pitt had not a great deal of respect for Newcastle but provided he obeyed orders and he would get orders from Pitt he would be, the new Secretary decided, a good man to deal with administration. No, he had no objection to serving ostensibly under Newcastle, for in point of fact, he himself would be the leader.
"Your Majesty," he went on, "rarely has this country been in such a dire state. Our sole ally, the King of Prussia, is laid low. We must give aid to Prussia. It is against my principles to support other countries but the position is vital. The French will be in command of America if we do not take care. Sire, we should turn our eyes to America. Our expansion lies outside these islands."
The King said: "I am in agreement with what you say, Mr Pitt."
"Canada must be ours... we have subjects in North America. We cannot allow the French to oust us. This is one of the important periods of our history. It is in our hands now to make or lose an Empire. It is up to us to decide."
"Then we will decide to make an Empire, Mr Pitt."
"So say I, Your Majesty. But it has to be won, Sire. It has to be won. Have I Your Majesty"s permission to seek out and promote those men who can do the best work for their country?"
"You have, Mr Pitt."
"I have already consulted Sir John Ligonier, who has given me some names of men whom he believes should be promoted. I believe these men should be entrusted with commands of the utmost importance. Colonel Jeffry Amherst, Major-General Henry Seymour Conway and Colonel James Wolfe."
"I have never heard these men"s names before," complained the King.
"No, Sire. You have heard the names of men who have so far led this country to disaster."
Mr Pitt was rather an uncomfortable gentleman; but the King still believed in him. He said he would consider his minister"s proposals; and when Mr Pitt had left he began to think of Caroline; he was sure she would have approved of Mr Pitt.
A Slight Case of Blackmail IN THE HOUSE in Tottenham the years pa.s.sed pleasantly. George"s visits were perhaps less frequent but that was explained by the fact that as Prince of Wales he had many duties; he was watched and could not easily slip away, and both he and Hannah lived in daily terror that their hiding-place would be discovered.
Jane visited Hannah from time to time and told her that she was still remembered in St James"s Market and that Isaac still professed to be looking for her. There were continual alarms. Someone had called on the Wheelers and told them that they had met Hannah somewhere in the country; someone else professed to have seen her at Wapping. Every Quaker girl who had any pretensions to good looks was suspected of being Hannah Lightfoot, the girl who disappeared on her wedding day.
She longed for George"s visits and while waiting for them occupied herself with working in the house, for she had been brought up to believe it was sinful to be idle. She had her stillroom and her garden, enclosed by a tall wall, and she had her needlework. But it was not really enough.
She longed for a simple country house with a husband who was always with her. Yet she would never love anyone but George. She would tell herself that although her life was not entirely satisfactory she was happier living in this way shut away from the world than she could ever have been with anyone else.
George was a little sad, too. He was very conscious of their position. He was essentially respectable and conventional and wished above all things that they could have been married. They were living in sin, he once said; and it was like a shadow between them. If he had been born someone other than the Prince of Wales, if they could have been respectably married, he would have asked nothing more of life.
He talked of his life at Court to her so that she felt she had lived there herself. Poor George! He was not meant to be a King and a King he must soon surely be. Being a simple young man, he did not want power or glory; he only wanted to be happy in a respectable conventional way.
But life was not all one hoped for.
She looked forward to Jane"s visits. Jane was growing more and more prosperous, for the gla.s.s-cutting business was doing well. Mr Jack Ems had sent customers to her and she had connections with the Court through Miss Elizabeth Chudleigh. It brought good customers and their business was going to prosper as Mr Betts" never could have done.
Jane, seated on a chair, her silk skirt spread around her exuding prosperity and enjoying freedom.
When Hannah went out it must be in a closed carriage; her exercise was taken mainly in the garden; and the great days of her life were when her lover came to see her.
Still, she would not change.
She was in the garden tending the first spring flowers when a servant came to tell her that Jane had arrived. Jane followed the maid into the garden and embraced her friend.
"Thou hast news?" said Hannah, who had never quite learned to drop the Quaker form of address and used it now and then.
Jane nodded.
"Good? Bad? You don"t say."
"I don"t know how you"ll take it, Hannah. If it were me I"d not care a jot. You"re expelled from the Society of Friends. What they call a Testimony of Denial."
"I know," said Hannah.
"Now you"re not going to mope about that!"
"Oh no, I shall not mope."
"You"ve been away from them for a long time now. You"re not going to tell me you want to go back to them."
"Never."
"There"s a great notice about it. It says you"ve disappeared and they no longer consider you one of them."
"This means that they will stop searching for me, Jane."
"I don"t think that. They"ll go on looking and people will go on talking. But they say you"re out... not one of them any longer. But you won"t worry much about that."
"Oh no."
"It says something about their being afraid some of your sin will come off on them. That"s why you"re disowned... until such a time as from a penitent mind and a true contrition of heart you will confess sorrow for your sins."
"That I shall never do."