The Edge of Reason (no, not Miss Jones!)
January 10, 2010
Carlton House South Front
George, Prince of Wales sinks into the slough of despond and compares notes with his intimate friend, Fred Berkeley
“The bird has flown! She is gone to France! Oh, to kiss the soil of Calais!”
George, Prince of Wales, was pacing his apartments at Carlton House in
great agitation, having received an enquiry from Lord Berkeley, just
returned from his country seat, as to the welfare of Mrs Fitzherbert. So
the rumours had substance!
“Why?” responded the astonished peer, justifying his sister’s nickname for him of Milord Pourquoi. “What for?”
“She
took fright at the strength of my ardour. She refused my hand when, I
swear by heaven, she is the partner of my soul.” The Prince lowered
his voice in contrite mood. “To tell the truth, Fred, I did give her
quite a scare. I had swallowed a quart of brandy. I was beside myself,
you understand, lost to all reason, in the utmost despair…”
“Trust me, sir, I take your meaning.”
“Ran myself through with a rapier! Near as dammit pierced the heart! I
sent for Maria and vowed to tear off my bandages if she wouldn’t have
me! There and then, I slipped a ring on her finger, should I not pull
through!”
“The deuce, George! A close shave!” The Earl paled and
fell to thinking how it might have been a Frederick to punctuate the run
of Georges under the nation’s crown. (The Duke of York was known to be
the King’s favourite.) Could the passions of a moment have such awesome
power to subvert destiny?
“This Catholic thing is a cursed millstone,” said the Prince.
“Religion,” mused his companion gloomily. “It’s pretty much fouled up the course of history. What shall you do?”
“I’ve a mind to go after her. Live abroad for a while, close up this
house, economise. That is how I have put it to His Majesty. He won’t
hear of it, of course. He says if I forsake my responsibilities here, I
will lose the goodwill of the people.”
“Your popularity has been assiduously nursed.”
“In any case, that will be lost – my Whig friends will grow cool – if the King has his way.”
“Oh?”
“He complains of my debts. I’ve not done with enlarging this place: it
has run through a fortune, but how am I to perform my duties if my
salary is not commensurate with my position? My father promises to help,
provided I turn coat and favour the Tories!”
“A dastardly thing when a fellow can’t follow his own conscience!”
“He has always hated me since the age of seven.”
Berkeley let rip a roar of laughter. “Forgive me, sir, but that being
the case, you’d do well to steer clear of the Berkeleys! Puts me in mind
of my grandfather, James, the 3rd Earl, who devised an outrageous
scheme for having your grandfather transported to the Americas and
conveniently lost, such an encumbrance was he to George I!”
“The hubris of the man!”
“It is well chronicled, I assure you. It probably accounts for why my
grandfather was not re-appointed as First Lord of the Admiralty at your
grandfather’s accession!”
“Well, bless me, tis not only Popery
drops a spanner in the works! Remind me, exactly, on which side were
your esteemed ancestors at Culloden?”
“Suffice to say, we Berkeleys
have no head for treason,” grinned his lordship, with as much truth as
ambiguity. “As for the Cloth, sir, it don’t see us if we see it first!”
“Whereas dear Maria is wedded to the Church and I am wedded to the State.”
His lordship’s mind did not run upon spiritual matters and his heart
would not assent to such abstractions as a Deity uncommitted to
providing a good hand at cards. Since his friend, George P, had
persisted in dedicated pursuit of Mrs Fitzherbert, Fred had been made
acutely aware of the painful torments of conscience suffered by those
adhering to Roman Catholic doctrine. (‘Hell-begotten Jacobines’ HRH had
called them.) It had been impossible to breach that good lady’s honour.
Maria was, as she so trenchantly observed, not good enough to be his
wife, but too good to be his mistress. The approval of both King and
Parliament regarding her status as a commoner was the least of it. To
add to his plight, the Prince was forbidden to marry a Catholic unless
he forfeited his right to the Throne, and that would have been a
perfidious thing. It seemed impossible that the new star of the
Hanoverian line should be denied his life’s desire by a religious
chauvinism on both sides of the fence.
The conversation had begun
to stir up feelings of unwonted empathy in Berkeley. He was beginning to
bind himself into the same dilemma with a female half his age and of a
far humbler station than Prince George’s widow. This was terrain he had
neither trodden nor owned in his two-score years of experience, and it
was nettling. He had a sensation that the very portraits slung about
these damask walls, safe in their own pastoral idyll, were mocking him.
“I really don’t comprehend...I don’t see.”
“What is it, Fred? You look as though you are trying to fathom calculus.”
“Why, by all that’s famous, are you set on marrying this lady? Can you
not make her a duchess and have her live at Court? Commitment is not the
prerogative of marriage: it is a private undertaking. I trust that is
the active principle in these forensic deliberations.”
The Prince
slumped down on a feather-backed chair. “If only it were so simple, but
true love should not run smooth... Maria would see no honour in what you
suggest. It is not merely the Constitution, Fred. The lady has scruples!
Her beliefs will not allow her to live, as she sees it, in sin.”
“The fact that you will be the first gentleman of Europe and not your
own man... The fact that an oath of allegiance to her monarch is
required...”
“...is not germane to the issue. My status counts for
nothing in this! What the Vicar of Christ dictates must be obeyed. We
are speaking of mortal sin and eternal damnation. You have no idea of
these Papists!”
Frederick Augustus let go a lengthy sigh. The phrase:
‘my status counts for nothing’ stung on the raw and might easily have
applied to him. “Oh, I think I am gaining a fair idea, sir. The measure
may be different, but fate has dealt me a similar conundrum.”
“You, Fred! What can you possibly want that you can’t have?”
“There is a young lady...”
“And you swore you’d never marry! We both did.”
“Oh, this is not in quite that league...”
“By the pain on your face, I must beg leave to doubt it.”
Berkeley hastily collected himself, irked by his own weakness. “The
artful little vixen has run to earth. But I shall find her. I shall
flush her out. See if I don’t!”
Excerpt from THE WOLF AND THE LAMB
Maria Fitzherbert
Read reviews, overview, excerpt of THE WOLF AND THE LAMB, Book One of the Berkeley Trilogy
Preview excerpts from THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS, Book Two of the Berkeley Trilogy
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