The Shadow of Tyburn Tree (68 page)

That night he discussed the matter very fully with Droopy Ned. Over supper in a private room at the Cock Tavern they went into every aspect of it, and the foppish but shrewd Droopy expressed himself as frankly delighted. In his laxy drawl, he pointed out that whereas Natalia could not have divorced Roger for desertion, he could certainly divorce her. She would have to be traced and the business would take time and money, but within a year or so Roger would again be a free man, and he should thank his stars for such a merciful escape. By that time Roger had reached a state in which he
did not need much convincing of this. They drank seven bottles of Claret between them and went home very drunk, arm-in-arm.

Relieved now from the unpalatable task of having to tell his parents anything about his marriage, Roger set out next day for Lymington. He found that his father was from home, having been appointed by their Lordships of the Admiralty as the head of a Special Commission to investigate conditions at the Nore. Roger's mother, was, as usual, delighted to see her tall, brown boy, and he told her as much as he thought fit and proper for her to know about his adventures.

During the next few days he talked with dozens of his old friends among the shop-people in the little town, and visited at several of the larger houses in the neighbourhood, to find that the country folk were every bit as much perturbed by the King's illness and the premature end it would bring to Mr. Pitt's administration, as were the citizens of London.

There could be no doubt that in the five years since the ending of the American war, the King had won the love and respect of the vast majority of his subjects; and everyone agreed that it was young Billy Pitt's genius that had revived Britain from near bankruptcy to her present prosperity.

‘Farmer' George and his Minister were both honest, frugal, clean-living men, and a pattern to the nation; whereas the Prince and his clique of depraved, unprincipled hangers-on typified the worst possible elements of the decadent Whig oligarchy. The Nonconformists, although the traditional opponents of the Royal prerogative, had begun to offer up prayers for the King's recovery in their chapels, spontaneously, over a week before the Established Church had formulated a prayer for the general use of its clergy. Even in the depths of country the Tory squires knew of the excesses at Carlton House and Brook's; and dread of what would happen to the country if the King's dissolute sons, and men like Fox and Sheridan, got control of it, was now casting a gloom over the minds of rich and poor alike.

After ten days, made restless by the constant flow of rumours, and finding himself unable to settle down to anything, Roger decided to return to London. A talk with Droopy soon put him
au courant
with the latest information.

On the 12th of November Pitt had proposed to the Prince that Parliament should be adjourned for a fortnight, and the Prince had agreed. On the 17th Pitt had asked leave to inform the Prince of the course he proposed to take on the re-assembling of Parliament, but an audience had been refused. On the 24th the Prince had at length inquired if Pitt had any proposals
to make and the slighted Prime Minister had retaliated by sending a polite negative.

That same day Fox arrived back in London from Italy. The news of the King's affliction had reached him at Bologna and he had made the return trip in nine days, which was believed to be a record. To his fury he found that Sheridan was not only managing everything for the Prince but actually living in Mrs. Fitzherbert's house, as the bailiffs were in possession of his own. But, although ill from the strain of his journey, the corpulent and flamboyant statesman immediately threw himself into the battle to wrest power from the King's friends, with all his old genius for intrigue.

The struggle now centred round the question whether there were any hopes of the King's recovery or if he was permanently mad; as upon that hinged the form that the Regency should take. Dr. Warren, who was now the King's principal medical attendant, being a Whig and a strong supporter of the Prince, took the blackest view; and his bulletins were received with acclamation at Brook's, from which a virulent campaign of rumour was now launched to persuade the public that there was no chance of the King ever becoming sane again.

But Pitt was determined to protect the future rights of the helpless monarch by every means in his power, so he consulted his father's old friend Dr. Addington, and Addington advised the calling-in of the Reverend Dr. Willis, who, during twenty-eight years, had supervised some nine hundred cases of lunacy at a private asylum in Lincolnshire.

That the King still enjoyed periods of sanity was made clear when his new doctor was presented to him. On being informed that Willis was a clergyman he remarked that he could not approve a minister of the church taking to the practice of medicine. Willis replied that Christ went about healing the sick; to which the King promptly retorted: ‘Yes, but I never heard that he got seven hundred a year for doing so.'

On the 29th the King was removed to Kew, and Willis reported that he did not consider the case by any means hopeless. But the King's recovery, all hope of which was still denied by his other doctors, could not be expected, even if it occurred at all, for some time to come; so the arrangements to introduce a Regency Bill had to go on.

On December the 5th Pitt moved for a Committee to examine the physicians, and twenty-one members of the House, selected from both parties, were appointed. As was to be expected, the evidence of Doctors Warren and Willis conflicted to such a degree that their statements had little influence on their hearers' previous beliefs and prejudices.

On the 10th the Prime Minister presented the medical evidence and moved for a Committee to investigate precedents. Immediately Fox was on his feet with vehement protest. He denounced the proposal as merely a pretext for delay. The heir-apparent was of mature age and capacity. He had as clear a right to exercise the sovereign power during the King's illness as he would have in case of death. Parliament's only business was to determine when he should assume the reins of government, and that should be settled with the least possible delay.

In his impatience to pull down the government Fox had overreached himself, and the cool, logical brain of Pitt instantly seized upon his enemy's error. Turning to his neighbour he whispered: ‘I'll
un-Whig
the gentleman for the rest of his life.' Then he rose to his feet and tore the demagogue to shreds; asserting that he advocated a breach of the constitution by implying that the House had not even the right to debate the question.

From this a most extraordinary situation arose. The Whigs, who for well over a century had claimed to be the defenders of the people's liberties, gave their full backing to Fox in his attempt to re-assert the Divine Right of Hereditary Royalty; while the Tories, who had always sought to protect the Royal prerogative, had, over-night, become the champions of the duly elected representatives of the people in their established right to place a check upon the arbitrary powers of the sovereign.

On the 12th, Sheridan's venomous hatred of Pitt led him openly to threaten the Prime Minister with the possibly dire consequences to himself, should he persist in opposing the Prince's claims further. Three days later the Duke of York attempted to offset the menace by a tactful speech in the House of Lords, but the damage was done. Pitt had the sympathy of every decent man and woman in the country. Yet there could be no altering the course that events must take, and arrangements were made for the introduction of the Regency Bill early in the New Year.

On the 19th of December Roger returned to Lymington to spend Christmas with his mother. He got in a few days shooting and attended a number of dances at the big houses round about—Pylewell, Priestlands and Vicars Hill—and also in the town Assembly Rooms. It was now well over two months since he had left Natalia, and already he had come to regard her as an episode of his past; so he entered on an amusing flirtation with another Christmas visitor to the district, Amanda Godfrey, the Titian-haired niece of old Sir Harry Burrard of Walhampton.

She was a lively and audacious young woman, who did not take much persuading to slip out of her uncle's house after everyone else was in bed, to keep assignations with her beau. On several nights they went for stolen walks together round the star-lit lakes in the grounds and through the still, frosty woods; but it was no more than a holiday romance, and by the middle of the first week of January Roger was back in London.

At the opening of the first session of Parliament for 1789, the most fateful year in modern history, the Regency Bill was the one question which occupied every member's mind; so the House sat impatiently through the preliminary business, the chief item of which was the election of a new Speaker, the holder of that office having died. Pitt's cousin, the heavy-featured but incorruptible William Grenville, was elected and, on January the 6th, the acrimonious discussions on the Bill were resumed.

Pitt's proposals were, in brief, that the Prince should be empowered to exercise the royal authority, but that the guardianship of the King and the regulation of the royal household should be committed to the Queen, with a Council to assist her. Further that the Prince-Regent should have no power to assign the King's property, grant any office beyond His Majesty's pleasure, or bestow any peerage, except on the King's children after they had attained their majority.

Thus, while bowing to the inevitable, the faithful Minister sought to ensure that the poor stricken monarch should remain in the care of those who loved him, that his property should be protected against the possibility of his recovery, and that his affliction should not provide an opportunity for his unprincipled son to swamp the House of Lords with the worthless and rapacious crew that formed his following.

For the days on end the Whigs screamed their rage at the prospect of so considerable a portion of the vast treasure they had hoped to loot being secured against them; but in vain. The Ministerial proposals were carried in both Houses, the Prince had no option but to consent to act as Regent on the terms submitted to him, and towards the end of January, preparations were made for the actual introduction of the Bill which would enable the Regent to replace Pitt's administration by one composed of Fox and his friends.

These were dark days for the nation but their gloom was lightened at intervals for Roger by several pleasurable episodes and minor pieces of good fortune.

On his return to London he found a notification from the Foreign Office that some packages were awaiting his collection. These turned out to have been forwarded by Hugh Elliot,
and contained all the things that both Roger and Natalia had left behind when they had quitted Copenhagen. He was a little disconcerted at the sight of Natalia's furs and dresses, and he found that his money-chest was empty, but he was extremely glad to recover his own expensive wardrobe.

Then, having had no acknowledgment of an application which he had put in privately to Lord Carmarthen early in December, for the reimbursement of his expenses while abroad, he waited upon that nobleman personally. True to the policy of the British Government, which reserves all but minor rewards and honours for its paid official servants working under those who have the distribution of them, and expects its private citizens to give their services from patriotism alone, his lordship pointed out that Roger must have had a very interesting time and that, in any case, a considerable proportion of the money he had spent must have been on his own enjoyment. However, Roger succeeded in obtaining a draft on the Treasury for five hundred pounds and, although several hundreds out on the deal, considered himself lucky to have settled for that sum before the dissolution of the administration jeopardised his chances of getting anything at all.

In mid-January he received a letter from Hugh Elliot, reporting that he had now succeeded in tracing Natalia. She had gone to Stockholm and was living there again in the Russian Embassy with her father, Count Andrew Razumof sky. Having known that she dared not return to Russia, Roger was a little surprised that this solution to the problem had not occurred to him before. He was much relieved to think that she was safe and well cared for; as, although he knew perfectly well inside himself that she was much too tough to come to any serious harm, he had occasionally had fits of morbid depression in which he had imagined her in the most dire straits, or even taking her own life on account of his having deserted her. He was glad, too, to know her whereabouts as it would facilitate his proceedings against her for divorce, although these could not be instituted for some time to come.

Next, towards the end of the month, he had another letter from Georgina. It was written from the Principality of Monaco on his birthday, the 8th, and was to wish him good luck on his coming of age. She was still enjoying the sunshine of the Mediterranean but now had a heartache to be back at her beloved Stillwaters to see its gardens blossom in the spring. Fortunately, she wrote, her father's business interests now demanded his return to England after his long absence, so they planned to get home towards the end of the first week in February.'

At the prospect of seeing her again so soon Roger felt the first real thrill of pleasure that he had known for many weeks. It was not that he wanted to make love to her; it was a feeling that he could not possibly have described, but he knew that he felt more content and happy when he was with her than with any other person that he had ever known.

Lastly, on the 1st of February he was elected a member of White's. On his attaining his majority he had become eligible for membership, and Droopy Ned had put him up. As a young man of respectable, but not distinguished, parentage, he felt that it was a considerable honour to belong to the Club which was the stronghold of all the great Tory families in the land; and he derived a particular satisfaction in having, in this way, nailed his colours to the mast at the very hour when Pitt's government was about to fall, and so many friends and protégés of the Prime Minister were turning their coats in the hope of saving their places or gaining benefits from the other side.