He believed his heart was broken.
The Dowager Princess was as ever delighted by my Lord Bute’s brilliance and devotion.
‘You have turned failure into success,’ she cried. ‘I must confess that I was in great fear. And you did it through gentleness and reason.’
‘It is the only way to manage George. We must, though, have the public announcement made as soon as possible. I confess I shall not feel easy in my mind until it is made.’
‘The Privy Councillors should be summoned at once and George himself must make the announcement. I agree with you and shall tremble until he has done so.’
‘He will do it,’ Bute assured her. ‘George’s goodness is our salvation. He is a young man who is determined to do his duty. Would there were more in the world like him. It would be a different place then.’
‘Ah yes, a good boy,’ sighed his mother. ‘What a pity that he should have to be stupid as well.’
George summoned the Privy Council to hear a matter of urgent and important business. The notifications were marked ‘absolute secret’, and the councillors arrived expecting that the King had decided to make peace or had come to some such momentous decision.
When they arrived he faced them, looking stern and pale, and he appeared to have lost that look of boyish innocence.
He stood up boldly and even as he did so he had a strong inclination to disband the meeting, to tell them all it was a great mistake.
But Lord Bute was there smiling at him encouragingly, anxious for him, wishing him to know that he could help him. ‘You can make her your mistress,’ said Bute, like a fond parent offering a child a sweetmeat to take with the medicine. But that was not George’s way.
‘Be a King,’ said his mother; and she was right. Before he was a lover, he must be a King.
He began to speak a little falteringly at first but his voice strengthened as he proceeded:
‘Having nothing so much at heart as to procure the welfare and happiness of my people, and to render the same stable and permanent to posterity, I have, ever since my accession to the throne, turned my thoughts towards the choice of a Princess for my consort; and now with great satisfaction acquaint you that after the fullest information and mature deliberation, I am come to a resolution to demand in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a Princess distinguished by every eminent virtue and amiable endowment, whose illustrious line has constantly shown the firmest zeal for the Protestant religion and a particular attachment to my family. I have judged proper to communicate to you these my intentions, in order that you may be fully appraised of a matter so highly important to me and to my kingdoms and which, I persuade myself, will be most acceptable to all my loving subjects.’
Lord Bute could scarcely hide his triumph, but his expression was one of deepest compassion and admiration as he met the King’s gaze.
As soon as possible he was with the Princess Augusta.
‘We must be prompt. There must be no delay. Betrothals have come to nothing before. This marriage must now take place at the earliest possible moment. Only then can we rest. Do you agree?’
‘I am in complete accord.’
‘Then I propose sending Lord Harcourt – a man I can trust – to Strelitz without delay. The Princess Charlotte must come to England at once.’
‘Let it be done, my dear.’
Lady Sarah could not believe the news. It was impossible. How could he have talked to her as he had when all the time he must have been making arrangements to marry the Princess Charlotte? She could have believed Newbattle capable of such duplicity, but not George.
Lady Caroline Fox was furious. She stamped up and down the apartment.
‘You have been a fool. You have thrown away the biggest chance you will ever get! It was all that folly in the beginning with Newbattle.’
Lady Sarah wept; but Mr Fox came in and shook his head over her. ‘It is a great calamity,’ he said. ‘When I consider all the good you might have brought to the family and all the disappointment you have brought us, I am speechless.’
‘I wish you would be,’ cried Sarah. ‘The whole lot of you.’
Then she threw her head into the pillows and put her fingers in her ears and refused either to look or listen to them.
When they left her she rose from her bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She was pretty. No one she knew was as pretty. And he had thought so. Why had he done this? Why had he insulted her… so publicly. It was not revenge for the way she had treated him over Newbattle. She was sure of that. And he had been so timorous… so eager to please her. He had behaved as though he really loved her.
‘And now… jilted,’ she said dramatically.
She was angry not so much because she had lost George – or rather a crown – but because he had made everyone think that he was going to ask her to marry him and then had, without warning, asked someone else. Everyone would be talking about the King’s engagement and when they did that they would talk about her. Poor Sarah Lennox, they would say. Newbattle would laugh. It was not really very pleasant.
She wished Susan were here. She would have had something to say about this and Susan was always good to talk to.
She could not talk to Susan, so it might be a comfort to write to her.
She took up her pen.
‘Even last Thursday the day the news came out, the hypocrite had the face to come up and speak to me with all the good humour in the world. He must have sent to that woman before you went out of town. Then what business had he to begin again? In short, his behaviour is that of a man who has neither sense, good nature nor honesty.’
There was some comfort in setting her feelings on paper, but nothing could alter the fact that the Lady Sarah Lennox had been jilted – and in the most public manner imaginable.
The Face in the Crowd
BY SEPTEMBER OF that year – two months after George had made up his mind to accept the Princess Charlotte, he was married to her.
George was reconciled; he was quite convinced that his duty to his crown must come before any personal desires. His heart had sunk when he had first seen his bride for she was no beauty and he could not stop thinking of the gay vitality of Lady Sarah, the haunting beauty of Hannah Lightfoot. The Princess was very different; she was small and thin, although he was pleased to see, not deformed; she was pale and what could be kindly called homely, with a flat nose and a very big mouth.
He gave no sign of his disappointment and welcomed her with warm affection. He had made up his mind that he would be a good husband to her and never, whatever the temptation he might be called upon to face, be unfaithful to her.
He must forget Sarah; he must stop Hannah from continually intruding on his thoughts.
Lady Sarah had given up thinking about the King. I had not really wanted him, she assured herself. I would have said No right away if the family had not persuaded me. I’d rather have had Newbattle… but I don’t want him either.
Her pet squirrel was not well and that was a matter of much graver concern to her, she told her sister, than the silly King’s wedding.
Lady Caroline, tired of telling her what a little fool she was, left her alone with her squirrel.
She did, however, write to Lady Susan:
‘I shall take care to show that I am not in the least mortified. Luckily, I did not love him, nor did I care very much for the title. But I am angry to have been made to look a fool. Please don’t tell anyone what I have written to you. I expect George will hate me and the family for ever, for one generally hates people that one is in the wrong with, and who know one has acted wrongly…’