‘I will come to her at once,’ said the Queen. ‘Fetch me my robe.’

‘Your Majesty will need your coach,’ said Lady Sundon. ‘The Prince and Princess are at St James’s.’

‘Are you mad? You’re dreaming.’

‘No, Madam. The Princess’s pains started, so I hear, and the Prince insisted that they leave by coach at once for St James’s.’

The King had appeared, the red of his face seeming to be reflected in his eyes.’

‘What’s all this? What’s all this?’

Lady Sundon repeated what she had told the Queen.

‘The puppy!’ cried the King. ‘The insolent puppy!’ Then he turned on the Queen. ‘This is your fault. You’re supposed to be so clever. Now they’ve outwitted you We shall have a false child put on us, depend upon it. Fine care you have shown for your son William, haven’t you? He will be mightily obliged to you. And you deserve anything he can say to you.’

The Queen did not answer him. She turned to Lady Sundon, ‘Help me dress. I must be at St James’s if possible when the child is born.’

The King did not accompany her but stumped angrily back to bed while the Queen made the night journey to St James’s.

There the Prince met her and coldly kissed her hand. ‘The child is born,’ he said. ‘A girl.’

A girl. That made the Queen feel better.

She went to the Princess’s bedroom where Augusta lay exhausted. Caroline kissed her and said she was afraid she had suffered a great deal.

‘It was nothing,’ said Augusta, smiling.

‘Where is the child?’

Lady Archibald Hamilton brought it wrapped up in an old red coat and a few napkins. She apologized to the Queen, explaining this was all she could find.

The Queen took the baby and kissed her.

‘Poor child,’ she said, ‘you have come into a troublesome world. It is a miracle that no harm has come to the Princess. What a pair of fools! And I’m surprised at you, my Lady Archibald. You have had ten children, you should have explained what danger the Princess was in.’

Lady Archibald Hamilton turned to the Prince and said: ‘You see, sir!’ in such a tone that the Queen was satisfied that she at least had attempted to stop the venture.

The Queen went back to Hampton where her daughters Amelia and Caroline were already up waiting to hear the news.

‘I have seen the fools,’ she said. ‘He is a scoundrel and she, poor thing, has no mind. If she were to spit into my face I should just wipe it off and not hold it against her.’

‘And the child, Mamma?’

‘A poor ugly little she-mouse. If instead of her there had been a brave large fat jolly boy, I should have been suspicious. As it is, I must accept the fact that this son of mine is an arrogant fool, but at least he is not an impotent one.’

Shortly after the birth of the Prince’s daughter, Lady Walpole died. She and Sir Robert had meant little to each other for years and Sir Robert’s immediate thought was that now he would be able to marry Maria.

At the same time he was expected to show some sorrow and the Queen summoned him that she might express her sympathy. This he accepted perfunctorily, but the Queen’s desire to know exactly how Lady Walpole had died aroused his interest.

What had been her symptoms? Was she not young to die?

‘Death,’ said Sir Robert, ‘can strike any of us at any time.’

‘That I know well,’ she said, ‘but she was a woman who fancied her comforts.’

‘She lived ... well,’ commented Walpole.

‘She had had her children. I wondered whether her death was due to ...’ The Queen paused and her manner became almost furtive. ‘Some women,’ she went on, ‘often suffer injuries in childbirth from which they never recover. I have heard of internal ruptures which can be dangerous. I wondered whether this had happened to Lady Walpole.’

‘I know of no such thing.’

‘You do not think that perhaps she kept it a secret?’

‘Why should she?’

‘Oh ... it might be something of which a woman did not care to speak.’

Walpole said: ‘It was nothing of that.’

And he knew then that he had discovered the Queen’s secret. This was the knowledge she shared with Lady Sundon; and she would tell no one, receive no treatment, because she thought it was too humiliating. Or was she afraid that through it she would lose the King’s affection?

It was folly. If the Queen did suffer in this way she should consult the physicians; he believed there was an operation that could be performed.

He went home to discuss this depressing matter with Maria and the exhilarating project of their coming marriage which, for the time, because it would follow so quickly on the death of his wife, they must keep their secret.

Two secrets, he thought. One so morbid, one so joyous; and neither need be secret. Nor would they be long? Soon everyone would know that he and Maria were married. And the Queen? If she did not look after her health the news of her disability would soon become common knowledge.

The Secret Betrayed

IT was a misty November morning when the Queen decided that she would go to inspect the new library she was having built in the stable yard of St James’s.

The King, strangely enough, had raised no objection, and Walpole had somehow found the money from the treasury to enable this project to become a reality. She had been wise, Caroline told herself, to have started the library after the King had returned chastened from Hanover.

Now she was watching it grow with real pleasure and she and her daughter Caroline came every day to inspect it.

It was pleasant, she said to Caroline, to have something that was a comfort to contemplate.

Caroline agreed; they were both thinking of Fred who, since the birth of his daughter, had behaved so badly, particularly to the Queen whom he seemed to dislike more than he did his father. If he had a chance of slighting her, he would seize it and the situation between them all had become so bad that the King had exiled Frederick, his wife, and child from St James’s, declaring he would not have him under the same roof.

This was exactly what Frederick and the Opposition wanted. He had taken up residence at Kew and started a new Court there. The Opposition was behind him, seeing in him the King who would very soon be on the throne. The young Tories believed that once the King was dead, that would be the end of Walpole and the Whigs; they would have their chance. Therefore the Prince’s Court was to be feared and neither the King nor the Queen knew when the next trouble would appear.

So, as Caroline said, it was very comforting to inspect the growing library.

But while she stood there the smiles on her face became fixed and the Princess Caroline, herself something of an invalid for her rheumatic pains were showing signs of returning now that damp cold weather was back, noticed that something was wrong.

‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘are you well?’

‘I think,’ said the Queen, leaning heavily on her daughter, ‘I should go back to my apartments.’

‘It is an attack of colic,’ said the Queen, looking at Lady Sundon as though daring her to suggest otherwise.

‘I have sent for Dr Tesier, Mamma,’ said the Princess.

‘I will lie down until he comes. I shall feel better then.’

Dr Tesier arrived and asked the Queen many questions. ‘It is my tiresome colic back again. The same as before, you remember, doctor?’

He did remember. It was a most unpleasant complaint while it lasted and after a bout of it the Queen often felt in better health.

‘Take a little Daffy’s Elixir, Madam,’ he said. ‘It cured you before. It will do so again.’