So to Ickworth went Hervey, and when he had gone the Prince realized how much he missed him and wondered what he could do to pass the time.

Anne Vane was wondering too. Strangely enough Hervey excited her more than any of her lovers and she was piqued because he had not even bothered to let her know he was going to the country. This was not the treatment she expected and she wondered how she could pay him for his neglect.

She had an idea when she saw Frederick disconsolately sitting by one of the fountains in the palace gardens ... alone.

She walked past him and dropped her kerchief, letting it flutter close to his feet. He did not see it so she approached with a show of timidity and sweeping a curtsey asked if she had His Highness’s permission to retrieve her kerchief.

Frederick was always charming and gracious to his father’s subjects. In fact in public he was charming and gracious to his family. This won him much popularity which the King was fast forfeiting now that he never failed, when the opportunity arose, to praise Hanover to the detriment of England.

He took the kerchief and rising and bowing presented it to Anne Vane.

She took it and let it drop again.

‘How careless of me! I ... I am overwhelmed by Your Highness’s graciousness.’

‘Oh ... it is nothing.’

‘But Your Highness is always so kind.’ She had raised her eyes to gaze at him with adoration.

‘I have seen you often ... and admired you.’

‘Not as often as I’ve seen you ... and I’ll swear you didn’t bestow as much admiration on me as I did on you.’ ‘You are very kind.’

She giggled slightly. It was an invitation. Anne Vane had never believed in delay. Once she had made up her mind she was ready. One of the advantages of losing one’s virtue, she often said, was that one was so often spared the anguish of decision : Should one? Shouldn’t one? Why not? Was always the answer. What was one more among so many?

‘It is Your Highness who is kind.’

‘Would you care to sit a while?’

She would esteem it the greatest honour.

So she sat and they talked. She did not mention Hervey. She was the most sensuously inviting woman he had ever met, her great virtue being that she always believed the love affair of the moment was going to be the best she had ever known, and was able to get her partner to share that belief.

Frederick was delighted. He ceased to miss Hervey.

He had a companion very much to his taste and that very day Anne Vane became his mistress.

How pleasant to be in Ickworth! Hervey wondered why he did not come more often. Molly was as coolly aloof as ever, never reproaching him, the perfect wife for a man such as he was.

It was amusing to write his poems and pieces. Pulteney had never forgiven him for that last little difference between them when he had thought he could persuade Hervey to give up his allegiance to Walpole and thus his post as Chamberlain to the Queen.

There had been sly little digs at him in The Craftsman and that venomous little Mr Pope had referred to him under a thin veil of disguise which didn’t deceive any as ‘Lord Fanny’. A slur of course on the feminine side of his nature. Fools! They didn’t realize that to be both masculine and feminine was to have the best of both worlds and was a matter for congratulation rather than ridicule. And when with it went a title, money, leisure, and a pretty wit, the possessor of all these was to be envied.

He was very pleased with the manner in which he arranged his life, and he meant it to be more and more entertaining. In time Frederick would be the King, and his closest friend and adviser was going to be John, Lord Hervey.

At the moment he was busy writing the dedication to a pamphlet which was entitled Sedition and Defamation Displayed. The dedication was to his enemies, the promoters of The Craftsman, headed by Pulteney. This would teach the man to be more careful when he set his writers to work on Lord Fanny, who might paint his cheeks, who might suffer vertigo at levees, but who none the less was a man who could face the wiliest politicians on an equal footing.

Stephen Fox came into the room, quietly, reverently. ‘I disturb you....’

‘Never, dear boy. Come here and read this.’

Stephen read with absorption now and then chuckling aloud.

‘It’s sheer genius,’ he said.

‘I trust it will make Pulteney writhe.’

‘I’m not surprised Walpole is eager to keep you on his side.’

‘Ah, the power of the pen, Stephen boy. Never forget it.’

‘You have made that plain to me. But ... I have news from the Court.’ Stephen looked anxious. ‘Anne Vane has become the Prince’s mistress.’

Hervey was silent for a while; then he burst out laughing.

‘Fred will always follow me. Really, I don’t think the poor fool has an original idea in his head.’

‘You ... you have no objections?’

‘My dear boy, what is Anne Vane to me? Nothing. What is Fred to me? As little. No, that’s not true. I respect the title Prince of Wales even when it’s attached to poor fool Fred. As for Anne Vane, the creature adores me. This is pique, Stephen, pure pique. But it offers opportunities. I shall use her to keep her eye on our little Prince for me. She shall report all his doings. Then I shall not have to return to the Court so soon. This is good news. I will write to the woman and you must send a messenger to deliver the letter to her. She shall tell us all that is in his mind. I will write to her without delay.’

At Ickworth Hervey continued to enjoy his days. He was writing a good deal; he was pleased to be with his wife and family; and Stephen was with him.

‘I do declare,’ he said, ‘that Frederick is a great trial to me. He is false, silly, and plagues me. My dearest Stephen, there was never a man less like your dear self than our silly Prince.’

That delighted Stephen and Hervey enjoyed pleasing him. Molly liked him to stay with the family now and then. It looked well; and in view of the fact that he did attract a certain amount of scandal when he was at Court it was necessary to become a respectable married man now and then. It showed everyone that Molly was not concerned in these scandals and that her marriage was as firm now as it had been in those early days when she and her husband had been content to live at Ickworth together and the children had begun to appear.

But peace was suddenly shattered.

Hervey like everyone else avidly read The Craftsmanw hen it made its appearance and since his Dedication to the Patrons of The Craftsman in that pamphlet Sedition andDefamation Displayed, he had been expecting some reaction.

Yet when he saw it he knew that it was so damaging that he would have to take some action.

He called Stephen to him. He was trembling with rage —as he held out the paper to his friend.

It was written by Pulteney and was titled A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel.

‘At first [wrote Pulteney], I was at a loss to imagine who could have composed this little work, but the little quaint antitheses, the laboured jingle of the periods, the great variety of rhetorical flourishes, affected metaphors and puerile witticisms proclaim this to be the production of pretty Mr Fainlove.’

He had, he wrote, made efforts to discover the author and had been told the secret by someone who had asked him not to treat the gentleman too harshly. ‘He is young and innocent. What would the ladies say? Ah, but you know he is a Lady himself, or at least such a nice composition of the two sexes that it is difficult to distinguish which is most predominant.’