And so, the cards are stacked...

Which means its very likely she will be found guilty. Then things could get very, very nasty.:eek: Which might be better in the longer term if the resultant reaction prompts reform without getting too bloody or extreme.

Steve
 
Pains and Penalties (2)
Weep, daughter of a royal line,
A Sire’s disgrace, a realm’s decay;
Ah! happy if each tear of thine
Could wash a Father’s fault away!

Weep–for thy tears are Virtue’s tears–
Auspicious to these suffering Isles;
And be each drop in future years
Repaid thee by thy People’s smiles!

Byron, “Lines to a Lady Weeping,” first published in the Morning Chronicle, March 7, 1812.[1]

Saturday, June 10
about 4 p.m.
Claremont House

Queen Caroline was in her daughter’s parlor with the two senior members of her legal team, Henry Brougham and Thomas Denman, along with Charlotte Augusta and Leopold.

“Consider this a rehearsal,” said Brougham. “When the time comes, you must have ready answers to whatever questions they ask.”

“I suppose I must,” said Caroline.

“Very well. Why was Pergami’s bedchamber always so near at hand to yours?”

“Apart from the fact that he was my majordomo, Will was getting old enough to sleep in his own room[2] and I needed protection.”

“You were expecting to be murdered in your bed?” said Denman.

“I wasn’t thinking so much of murder,” she said. “Allow me to explain. Did you know that before the late King Frederick of Württemberg married the Princess Royal, he was married to my older sister?”[3] Brougham nodded in reply, although he didn’t quite see the relevance.

“And he was a dreadful ogre, I might add. She was scarcely more than a girl, and he would berate her viciously at any excuse or none, strike her if he was the least bit angry, which from a brute that size[4] — well, it’s a wonder she survived. But that’s not the worst of it.

“When he finally tired of her and wanted to divorce her, he sent his… aide-de-camp” — at this point, her eyebrows and tone of voice were doing everything they possibly could to indicate that this aide-de-camp might have served the king in some other capacity as well — “into her chambers at night under orders to rape her, so that he might charge her with adulter— are you all right, Thomas?” (Denman was choking on his tea. He had not expected the conversation to take this particular turn.)

“Quite… well, Your Majesty.” He took a deep breath. “Pray continue.”

“Well, fortunately she had taken the precaution of having her maid sleep in the room with her, and for the blackguard to have done the deed in front of an audience would rather have defeated the purpose — so he retreated as soon as he saw her. But I feared Prinny[5] might send someone to try some similar mischief against me.”

“You… believe Father might do such a thing,” said Charlotte Augusta. She sounded surprised, but only a little.

“I don’t know that he would,” said Caroline, “but I’ve been surprised more than once by the depths to which he will stoop. Some surprises I would sooner avoid, thank you.”

“Would it not have served to have a maid in the room, as your sister did?” said Brougham.

“My sister was in St. Petersburg at the time,” she said. “Frederick was governing Old Finland for Catherine, although after this she dismissed him. Under my own circumstances, I felt safer with a man close by. Particularly a capable warrior like Barty, who could fight and best any two villains in Europe.”

“No doubt he could,” said Brougham. “Nonetheless, it would be better to refer to him as ‘Pergami.’ You don’t want to seem too familiar with him.”

“Of course,” said Caroline. “Apart from that, is your question answered?”

“It is,” said Brougham. He wondered for a moment if the story were true. If it were, than George III (whom both Caroline and Charlotte Augusta both still held in some affection) had handed his own oldest daughter over to one of the worst monsters in Europe.

“So long as you add that last caveat — that you are speaking of your own fears, not of any known plot of His Majesty’s — you should be on safe legal grounds,” said Denman. “The only reputation damaged would be that of King Frederick, who, being dead, cannot sue.”

“Which reminds me,” said Brougham. He turned to the princess.

“You realize,” he said, “that in order to properly defend the Queen, it will be necessary to speak publicly of the King’s own… reputation. I hope you will be prepared for that.”

Charlotte snorted. “His reputation,” she said sarcastically. “‘O, he has lost his reputation!’ Who is his mistress this week, do you know? Is it Lady Hertford, or Lady Conyngham? I’ve quite lost track.” Caroline laughed out loud. No one else in the room ventured more than a slight chuckle. Leopold placed a hand on the princess’s arm.

“All my life I’ve seen my father disgracing himself in the sight of the whole kingdom, and all my life I’ve had to listen to the people around me trying not to speak of it where they think I can hear. Even the Tories have been kind to me. They… pity me.” She spoke this last through clenched teeth, then turned to look at Brougham squarely.

“I have had my fill and more of pity, Henry,” she said. “Do your worst. Spare nothing and no one, myself least of all. I insist.”


[1] When Prince George first became regent in 1811, everyone expected him to dismiss the current government and appoint his then-allies, the Whigs. By 1812, however, it was clear his loyalties had changed and this wasn’t going to happen. In fact, according to some accounts, on Charlotte Augusta's 16th birthday he delivered a toast in which he denounced the Whig leadership — whereupon Charlotte, already politically aware, burst into tears, inspiring Byron to write this little poem.
[2] Caroline had William Austin sleeping in her room until he was 13.
[3] Augusta of Brunswick, mother of William of Württemberg, who was first seen being awesome here. She died in 1788. (Her body was never returned to Brunswick, so Caroline believes — or claims to believe — she’s still alive somewhere, but that’s another story.)
[4] King Frederick of Württemberg was one or two inches shy of seven feet tall and weighed 440 pounds.
[5] “Prinny” has been king for six months, but old habits die hard — especialy when talking about somebody no one really respects.
 
Lycaon pictus

This could get very messy for George IV. A hell of a lot of dirty linen coming out. I thought Charlotte would support her mother but if it gets that public then we're back to 18thC times with an open and deep feud between the king and his heir. You will have the establishment power of the monarchy against probably the two most popular people in the kingdom.;)

Steve
 

Thande

Donor
Lycaon pictus

This could get very messy for George IV. A hell of a lot of dirty linen coming out. I thought Charlotte would support her mother but if it gets that public then we're back to 18thC times with an open and deep feud between the king and his heir. You will have the establishment power of the monarchy against probably the two most popular people in the kingdom.;)

Steve

The establishment generally knows when the tide of popular anger is enough to quietly sidle away from behind an unpopular king and mutter about how they were always on the public's side. Their priority is to preserve their own power and the constitutional stability of the kingdom, not to defend an individual monarch to the death. It just depends on whether it's got to that point yet.
 
The establishment generally knows when the tide of popular anger is enough to quietly sidle away from behind an unpopular king and mutter about how they were always on the public's side. Their priority is to preserve their own power and the constitutional stability of the kingdom, not to defend an individual monarch to the death. It just depends on whether it's got to that point yet.

Thande

True but that also rather depends on whether the king in question is intelligent and rational enough to listen to his advisor's when they warn him that points been reached. If not then a lot of people have to consider whether they prefer sticking with the king or standing back and risking major public opposition to him, which could get way out of hand and affect them as well.

Steve
 
Do not forget that the people forcing their monarch to abdicate happened sveral times in OTL (but not in the UK).

Barbarossa Rotbart

It has happened a few times in England/GB although it tends to be pretty bloody. Also for the establishment at the moment the example they will have in mind is France 1789. Which they will want to avoid. How many decide the best way of doing that is forcing the king out and how many prefer sitting tight and seeking to suppress unrest would be the key issue.

Steve
 
You're right. But only because I've forgot to add that they replace him with his legitimate heir. This happened neither in the Glorious Revolution (neither William III nor Mary II were James legitimate heir, James Francis better known as The Old Pretender was) nor in the French Revolution (because the monarchy had been abolished). But this happened in Belgium (1951) and Luxembourg (1919).
 
You're right. But only because I've forgot to add that they replace him with his legitimate heir. This happened neither in the Glorious Revolution (neither William III nor Mary II were James legitimate heir, James Francis better known as The Old Pretender was) nor in the French Revolution (because the monarchy had been abolished). But this happened in Belgium (1951) and Luxembourg (1919).

Don't forget this is 18200-odd here so those examples won't be available to the people involved.;)

Steve
 
So... this wouldn't be counted as a case of lèse majesté on the part of Charlotte, would it?

Charlotte is a lot more restrained when talking about her father in public. Self-control is not a trait she inherited from either of her parents, but Henry Brougham and her husband have both been a positive influence on her.

Brougham is going to be the one who has to be careful, since he's going to be doing most of the talking for public record.


EDIT: And over the 100,000-view mark we go! Thanks, everybody!
 
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Surprise Witnesses (1)
The second reading of the Pains and Penalties Bill took place on July 6, despite the warnings of the Earl of Caernarvon (a Whig) that “this is a question the agitation of which can produce no public good” and that it would “excite and alarm the public feeling, without any sufficient public motive.”

At this point, Queenite demonstrations, though larger than ever, had become more cheerful, with less threat of violence. Leading Tories were booed and hissed like stage villains, but rarely was anything thrown at them. This was because, on the streets of London at least, the Queenites had already won. In the drawing-rooms of the upper classes, men (and a very few women) might still snigger at Queen Caroline and Pergami, her “Night Companion and Commander of the Bath” (a reference to Demont’s allegation that the two had bathed together). Among the middle and lower classes, however, anyone who still considered His Majesty the wronged party was keeping very quiet about it. Increasingly, younger Conservatives like Robert Peel were wondering if it was time to intervene on behalf of the party…

Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


Saturday, July 15
About 4 p.m.
The House of Lords, Westminster

Brougham sat and listened to the witness, and considered how best to proceed.

He glanced back at his principal. Caroline sat, a little bit slumped and cradling her stomach as though it hurt. To her right sat her daughter, poised, reserved and already looking every inch a queen — looking, in fact, as if she were about to order someone beheaded. On the left was Lady Anne Hamilton, the Queen’s friend and lady-in-waiting, who had spent the whole day leaning on her brother Archibald’s shoulder in an exaggerated display of femininity (which must have put some slight strain on Lord Hamilton, as she was six feet tall).

Brougham thought things had gone rather well, so far. Louise Demont and her not-exactly-husband Sacchi had testified for the first two days. Rather than pick apart Louise’s many claims about the relationship between Caroline and Pergami, Brougham and the other attorneys had attacked her credibility directly, pointing out the circumstances of her dismissal, the fact that she was now calling herself “the Countess of Milan” on no basis whatsoever, and the fact that not long after her dismissal she had written to her half-sister (still a valued employee of the Queen, and at this point a most useful ally) expressing her admiration for Her Majesty and rather obviously hoping to get her job back.

Sacchi, “the Count of Milan,” had described in loving detail the sight of Caroline and Pergami asleep in one another’s arms in the back of a carriage, with her hand in the vicinity of his crotch. He had, in fact, described it in such detail that the defense attorneys had been able to point out that two people in that particular pose would have fallen onto the floor of the carriage the first time it ran over a bump.

The testimony of the maid Barbara Kress had taken longer than it should have, because it had turned out, several hours in, that the interpreter had come from the wrong part of the Germanies and hadn’t been entirely clear in his own mind what she was saying. Even after they had found another one, they had tended to get lost in details like the definition of the word “wüste” when used to describe bedsheets. (Ironically, the person in the room who had best understood Frau Kress had probably been the Brunswicker Caroline.) On the whole, Brougham didn’t think they’d taken too much damage.

As for the other witnesses… where to begin? Gaetano Paturzo, the ship’s mate who had seen Caroline sitting on Pergami’s lap — in a time and place when everyone on the ship would have seen them? The innkeeper Pietro Cuchi, who thought he had seen Pergami, lightly clad, leaving Caroline’s bedchamber late at night — but wasn’t sure, because it had been hard to see through the keyhole? Luigi Galdini, who claimed to have wandered into the Villa d’Este by mistake and caught Caroline and Pergami in an indecent position without ever being intercepted by a servant?

But this was Captain Briggs of the Leviathan, the only witness who hadn’t been bribed or (in the case of Kress) threatened into being here. There would be no impeaching his honour. And he had just descibed seeing Pergami and Caroline holding hands. This could be a problem…

“I should like to ask,” said the young Tory Lord Ellenborough, “whether the witness saw any improper familiarity between the Princess and Pergami.”

“No, I did not,” said Briggs.

“And had you any reason to suspect any improper freedom or familiarity between them?”

“No.”

Or not.

On that note, the House adjourned for the day. Some of Ellenborough’s colleagues were looking at him as though they were no longer sure which side he was on.

Is this all they have? thought Brougham. I wasn’t expecting much from the King’s faction, but this? I’m a little disappointed.

Earl Grey approached them in the Peers’ Lobby. “Your Majesty, Your Highness, Mr. Brougham? Might I have a word with you?”

“Of course, Charles,” said the Princess.

Grey lowered his voice. “I have some news which may concern you,” he said. (Brougham immediately manuevered himself into position between Her Majesty and the rest of the lobby so that none of the Tories could see her reaction, if any.)

“Next week, I’ve heard, the prosecution” — even if this wasn’t really a trial, everyone was using the language of one — “will bring forward two more witnesses. Apparently they’ve been brought over from France, and will return there as soon as they’ve given evidence.”

“Are we not to be allowed to cross-examine them?” asked Brougham.

“In front of the Lords, yes,” said Grey, “but they will not be speaking before the Commons.”

“Who are these witnesses?”

“Two of Her Majesty’s servants from d’Issy. Gaetan Jeannot and Aloïse St-Leger.”

Brougham had met both of them in Paris, but couldn’t remember much about either one of them. Judging by the look on Caroline’s face, however (and Lady Hamilton’s face, which Brougham couldn’t block from public view) this was a dreadful surprise.
 
Surprise Witnesses (2)
Monday, July 17
About 1 p.m.
The House of Lords, Westminster

M. Jeannot, an nondescript little man whose hair was just starting to turn gray, had served as the Queen's factor almost since her arrival in Paris. Unlike many of the witnesses, he spoke English just well enough not to need a translator. According to his testimony, he had on several occasions purchased perfume for her.

"And when you presented these purchases to her," asked Lord Gifford, the Solicitor General[1], "who was with her?"

"Baron Pergami."

"And how did they respond?"

"She… put a drop of the perfume on her skin. He come forward, like this" — Jeannot leaned forward in his seat — "and smell the perfume."

"Where on her skin did she place the perfume?"

"Twice I see her… put it on her arm, here." He tapped his wrist. "Once I see her put it on her… chest. Above her dress." He tapped himself on the chest about where a woman's cleavage would begin.

"On her bosom, you mean?"

"Oui, merci. Her… bosom."

"And again, the Baron leaned forward, closely, to smell it?"

"Objection," said Brougham. "Leading question."

"I shall rephrase. How did the Baron respond when the Queen anointed her bosom with perfume?"

"He put his nose very near her bosom and he smell it."

Jeannot then went on to describe purchasing undergarments for the Queen, which she allegedly examined in the company of Pergami. His English was not quite good enough to say how lacy or frilly they were, but he said they were "small."

And then the day took a turn for the strange. Jeannot went on to describe being commissioned to procure the services of a dancer who called himself "The Sheik of Araby." Somehow or other he had apparently contrived to remain in the room while the dancer did his dance, wearing a loose-fitting pair of linen pantaloons.

"Describe this dance," said Lord Gifford.

"He… use his pantaloons."

"What do you mean, he used his pantaloons?"

"He move them forward and back… like so." Jeannot stood up, grabbed the sides of his trousers and pushed them forward and backward.

"And what else did he do?"

"He did… this." A look of studious concentration came over his face. Then, still standing, he waved his arms, snapped his fingers and moved his hips and torso in what was probably supposed to be a sinuous fashion, but wasn't.[2]

* * *

About 6 p.m.
Henry Brougham's house in London

"And what did you do then?" said Margaret, once she had stopped laughing and gotten her breath back.

Brougham waited until he had chewed and swallowed a mouthful of dinner to proceed with the story.

"I asked a few questions which established that the Commission had not brought any of the perfumers or haberdashers who could corroborate Jeannot's tale."

"Or the Sheik of Araby?"

"Or him, sadly. And of course there were never any receipts."

"So do you think it was a victory?"

"To be honest, I'm not quite sure," he said, "but one thing I am sure of. After that performance, anything M. St-Leger has to say will surely be an anticlimax."

For the rest of his life, whenever Henry Brougham showed signs of smugness or intellectual arrogance in front of his wife, she would remind him he had said that.


[1] IOTL, the Solicitor General at this point was John Singleton Copley, son of the American painter.
[2] IOTL it was Majocchi who performed an erotic dance in front of the assembled Lords. My conscience as a writer would not allow me to leave out a scene like this.
 
Now that was a scene I wasn't expecting.



Sorry I didn't comment on the last post- this is excellent, I'm actually quite excited to see what happens next.
 
I've never commented before, but the writing in that last section was simply exquisite. I am a little curious as to why with a POD in the 1812 War, there is such a focus on this little episode.
 
I've never commented before, but the writing in that last section was simply exquisite. I am a little curious as to why with a POD in the 1812 War, there is such a focus on this little episode.

Mumby

I can think of two possible reasons, although there might be others.

a) Lycaon pictus finds it interesting or amusing to write about.

b) Since we already have the butterfly of Charlotte surviving to support her mother here the results of the 'trial' could have a huge impact on developments in Britain and as a result much of the world.

It does seem to have gone a long way from the largely forgotten Louisiana state so have to see if we will have developments there.

Steve
 
Mumby

I can think of two possible reasons, although there might be others.

a) Lycaon pictus finds it interesting or amusing to write about.

b) Since we already have the butterfly of Charlotte surviving to support her mother here the results of the 'trial' could have a huge impact on developments in Britain and as a result much of the world.

It does seem to have gone a long way from the largely forgotten Louisiana state so have to see if we will have developments there.

Steve

I wasn't criticising. Its actually quite fascinating to read about such a stark division in society which has now been forgotten. Also, I had Charlotte survive in my TL so I'm wondering whether I ought to have changed anything considering what I'm reading here.
 
I wasn't criticising. Its actually quite fascinating to read about such a stark division in society which has now been forgotten. Also, I had Charlotte survive in my TL so I'm wondering whether I ought to have changed anything considering what I'm reading here.

Mumby

I wasn't taking it as a criticism, but since the POD was at New Orleans the fairly long coverage of this point is quite a difference so think its a valid comment. [Whether LP thinks the same way? ;) although I suspect he does].

Steve
 
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