The Dead Skunk

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I apologize for the long delay (again).

Now, let's add a little something to thicken the plot…




April 14, 1820
8:15 p.m.
Winchelsea
In one week, the new Parliament would meet. Liverpool’s majority had been reduced, but was still there.

Henry Brougham had not been expecting visitors today. He and his wife had nearly finished packing for the trip to London when Samuel Whitbread had shown up at their doorstep, quite unannounced. Nonetheless, they had been able to treat him to a respectable dinner.

Now, Brougham and Whitbread were in the drawing-room.

“Again I apologize for presuming upon your hospitality in this fashion,” said Whitbread, “but there is a matter in which I desperately need your wisdom. I would have written you a letter, but I thought it would be best if neither of us were the source of any… potentially incriminating correspondence.”

Brougham leaned forward in his chair. “You have my full attention,” he said. “Pray continue.”

“Recently I received a letter from a well-informed source in France,” said Whitbread. “It contains most disturbing allegations against men in the highest levels of government, and against the royal family itself.”

“Who is this source?”

“Talleyrand-Périgord.”

Brougham was silent for a moment. The number of living men whose intellects he considered equal to his own could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Talleyrand happened to be one of them.

Whitbread reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. “I have it here,” he said. “Would you care to read it?”

“By all means,” said Brougham. He took the letter and held it up to the lamp.

The handwriting was not elegant, but workmanlike and legible. It had been some time since Brougham had read anything in French, but after a few sentences the old lessons came back to him.

“Disturbing” was a very mild word for what Talleyrand alleged. He charged that the King, his brothers the Dukes of York, Clarence and Cumberland, the Prime Minister, Castlereagh, Sidmouth and other prominent Conservatives were plotting to remove Charlotte Augusta from the line of succession in favor of her infant cousin Victor Alexander. More than that, the letter claimed that they had previously tried to assassinate her in the guise of medical care, and that Sir Richard Croft had been their agent in this matter. Talleyrand offered no proof for any of this, but claimed to have sources deep within the ranks of the government.

“What do you make of it?” said Whitbread at last.

“First, to state the obvious — without proof, these are actionable libels that we daren’t repeat to anyone… at least, not in such a way that they could be traced back to us.

“Now having said so much, three questions come to mind. Imprimis, why did he write this letter and address it to you? Secundus, is any of this true? Tertius, what ought we to do about it?”

“I should say your second question is the most important of the three,” said Whitbread.

“Very well; whatever else may be true or false, I do not believe there was ever a plot to murder Her Highness. Given how many men and women die under the care of doctors with the best of intentions, it seems to me that if Croft had truly aimed at her death, she would not today be among the living.”

“But as Talleyrand says, her Highness did have two miscarriages under Croft’s care and two healthy births under Stockmar’s. Do you think this a coincidence?”

“I think I know who I want caring for my Margaret in her confinement,” said Brougham. “Croft may be a bungler, but I do not believe him a murderer. And consider — at the time the miscarriages you speak of occurred, she was the sole legitimate heir in her generation. No conspiracy involving the royal family would dare jeopardize the dynasty by doing her in or by tampering with her powers of parturition.

“More importantly, remember one who did die on Croft’s hands — Louis of France, the one man whom all these alleged conspirators would have wished a long and happy life. With his death, all Castlereagh’s plans came crashing down in ruin.”

“Then you believe Talleyrand a liar.” Whitbread sounded strangely disappointed.

“I believe him clever, ruthless and motivated by his own interest and that of France, in that precise order,” said Brougham. “We have already seen in the Netherlands his willingness to meddle in the affairs of other nations. Too often the Tories have accused us of being naïve in our understanding of the French — let us not prove them right.”

“But what if he is telling us the truth?”

“The charge that the king and his ministers plan to disinherit Her Highness — that much at least may be true, although it would be a very bold move on their part and I cannot imagine how they would go about it,” said Brougham. “Talleyrand may have included it to lend credibility to his other claim… in which case we may expect to see this plan put into motion before very long.”

“We cannot possibly let them do that!” said Whitbread. “It would be a disaster. We must warn the people.”

“An anonymous leaflet, perhaps,” said Brougham. “Published under a pseudonym — ‘Junius Secundus,’ perhaps, or ‘Junius Junior.’” He chuckled at his own little joke. “If the charge is false, no real harm will be done, as no one will believe it who was not already disposed to think the worst of the Tories. If the conspiracy exists, then publicizing it anywhere is likely to scupper it… and to set the king and his ministers wondering which of them let the secret out.”

“Easily done,” said Whitbread.

“Yes, but this may be a trap,” said Brougham. “If you were to write such a broadside, the next missive from Talleyrand might read: ‘Howsoever you try to disguise yourself, Junius Secundus, the fact remains that the allegations in that leaflet could have come from no one but myself, and I dispatched them to no one but you. Therefore, unless you wish to be exposed as a libellist and the agent of a foreign power, you are my man in London henceforth and for ever.’” By the look on Whitbread’s face, he hadn’t thought of this at all.

“Then… what do you suggest?”

“This letter came to you. The decision rests with you.”

Whitbread sat in thought for a long moment. Finally he said, “I will sooner risk my own ruin than the ruin of the people. I will publish it anonymously and see what comes of it. Whatever happens, dear Henry, I promise you will be held blameless.”

Damned right I will, thought Brougham. “Thank you, Samuel,” he said.

So, Brougham thought to himself later, Talleyrand is putting in his oar… and on our side of the boat. What mischief is he up to? Well, whatever it is, I’m certainly not going to abandon the cause of reform for fear of serving his purpose. But if he thinks he can make me a pawn in his game, he is very much mistaken.

Suddenly, Brougham was looking forward to the next session of Parliament. At last he had a worthy adversary.

 

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Queen Caroline returned to her kingdom on March 13. Among the first to hail her arrival was Thomas Barnes of the Times, who in the next day’s editorial not only compared her to William the Conqueror, Henry VII and William III, but added that “this woman comes arrayed only in native courage and (may we not add?) conscious innocence; and presents her bosom, aye, offers her neck to those who threatened to sever her head from it, if ever she dared to come within their reach.”

This was almost entirely hyperbole — almost. Even as these words were going to print, the king was giving the order for Powell and Leach to gather all the evidence against her — and not merely the work of the D’Issy Commission, but the 1813 investigation and the so-called “Delicate Investigation” of 1806. This last had been based on the allegations of Lady Douglas that (among much else) her adopted child, William Austin, was in fact her biological child by another man — which would, at the time, have constituted high treason…


To Viscount Castlereagh, the claims made in the pamphlet The Plot Against Our Princess were already proof that the Radicals regarded libel and slander as fit weapons with which to attack the royal family. If he had known of Talleyrand’s missive to Whitbread, it would have confirmed all his worst suspicions — that in their eagerness to destroy the existing structure of power in the United Kingdom, the Radicals had become either the dupes or the willing collaborators of its ancient enemy, France.

Of course, Henry Brougham could have pointed out in return, had he known, that Castlereagh had no scruples about sharing British domestic concerns with a tyrannous foreign prince. “Your Highness will observe, that although we have made an immense progress against Radicalism, the monster still lives, and shows himself in new shapes; but we do not despair of crushing him by time and perseverance,” he had written to Metternich at the beginning of the year.[1]

In that same letter, the foreign minister had noted prophetically that “our session is likely to be a troublesome one” and spelled out his gravest concern: “Much will depend on the course her majesty shall think fit to pursue. If she is wise enough to accept the pont d’or[2] which we have tendered her, the calamities and scandal of a public investigation will be avoided. If she is mad enough or so ill-advised as to put her foot upon English ground, I shall, from that moment, regard Pandora’s box as opened.” He went on to thank Metternich profusely for his correspondence with the king, which, he said, “had its due weight in reconciling our royal master to the advice which his ministers felt it their bounden duty to give to his majesty.”

This letter also reveals the true motivations of Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh, which had very little to do with the sanctity of the royal marriage. To King George IV, the fight against Caroline was a war he had been waging since shortly after the birth of their daughter. To Their Lordships, the fight against Caroline’s Radical allies was a political extension of the wars against Revolutionary France and Napoleon — a defense of Christian civilization against the forces of Jacobinism, the guillotine, Chaos and ancient Night. Small wonder too that Metternich was willing to offer his input, or that Castlereagh was so eager to accept it.

And if the Radicals were willing to smear the reputations of the king and his brothers, the Tories had little cause for complaint under the circumstances. Not content with the d’Issy Commission’s allegations, leading Conservatives were quietly putting forth enough salacious rumours to transform this fifty-year-old grandmother into the Semiramis of the Regency era. The drawing-rooms of the upper classes echoed with claims that during Caroline’s travels abroad she had enjoyed sexual encounters with such disparate figures as King Joachim of Italy, Lucien Bonaparte and the Dey of Algiers (which led to the inevitable jokes about her having been “as happy as the Dey was long.”) Of course, all this mud hurled from on high only served to cement the Queen’s popularity among the Radicals — but this, too, was part of Castlereagh’s plan.
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


[1] IOTL Castlereagh wrote this letter to Metternich in May.
[2] I.e., their proposed settlement of 50,000 a year in exchange for staying out of the country.

 

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The new session of Parliament began on April 21. Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh, and the rest of the king’s supporters, were ready for political battle. “We have at length come to a final and ultimate issue with this outrageous woman,” said John Hely-Hutchinson. “She has set the King’s authority at defiance, and it is now time for her to feel his vengeance and his power.”

Caroline had not been idle during the preceding month. After a week at Claremont House coping with a bout of stomach trouble, she had begun holding a series of mass demonstrations throughout the London area — demonstrations that in their scale and duration openly flouted the Six Acts. In a later age, this would have been called “peaceful defiance,”[1] but in 1820 it was dangerously close to rebellion. Even Lord Chancellor John Scott, First Earl of Eldon and one of the king’s allies, said that “she is the most courageous lady I ever heard of.” (By contrast, King George hardly set foot in the London area for most of this time, leaving most of his duties to be handled by his comparatively competent brother Frederick Duke of York.)

She was not alone. Although Caroline’s support was strongest among the lower classes, many leading citizens attended these events as well, including a number of Radical MPs — in fact, most of these rallies and marches were organized by Alderman Matthew Wood, former Lord Mayor of London.[2] More importantly, Charlotte Augusta herself attended and addressed the crowd at many of them…


By the time Parliament was back in session, the King’s faction already felt that the “Queenites” had them under siege. “We have been entirely out-generaled,” lamented Lord Hutchinson.

Their counterattack began on the very first day of the session. Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh presented each House with a huge lawyer’s brief-bag stuffed full of copies of all the evidence the King’s supporters had been able to compile — the two “Green Bags” which were soon to become infamous throughout the empire — along with a message from the King recommending this evidence “to the immediate and serious attention of these Houses.”

But the bags were not simply thrown open to the public. Liverpool’s first step was to announce that on Monday he would propose the formation of a “Secret Committee on the Papers Relating to the Conduct of the Queen.” This committee would parse the evidence in the bags and issue its recommendation.

Monday began in the Commons with a speech of immense length by Lord Castlereagh in which (among much else) he repeatedly asserted that the purpose of the proposed inquiry was simply to discover the truth, and professed astonishment that anyone should imagine that it was intended to harm the reputation of the Queen. “No such intention was ever for a moment, or ever could be, harboured by his majesty's government,” he said, “the object of the message before the House being merely to obtain that advice which it professed to require.”

When Castlereagh was done, Henry Brougham took to the floor. He began by reading aloud a letter from Caroline and her solicitor, Thomas Denman, denouncing the idea of “a secret tribunal to examine documents privately prepared by my adversaries,” and demanding to have the case against her made in public at every step. He then reminded his audience of the social horrors that had ensued from such public airings of previous royal scandals, in which “the opening of a newspaper was regarded with disgust by every modest and well-conducted family.” In effect, Brougham was demanding that King and Parliament drop the matter now.

Then George Canning entered the fray. He neither supported nor opposed the formation of the committee, but expressed profound regret that matters had reached such a pass. (And well he might — he had been a friend of Caroline’s since her wedding in 1795, but he now oversaw the East India Company for King George.) “The wish nearest my heart,” he said, “was that this extremity could have been avoided. My next wish is that which must be the wish alike of all the country — that Her Majesty might come out of the inquiry with honour to herself, and satisfaction to her friends.”

Then William Wilberforce asked the House to delay the appointment of the committee until Wednesday. The House agreed to this — the first of many attempts Wilberforce would make to postpone the inevitable.
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


[1] Civil disobedience
[2] IOTL, Caroline moved into Wood’s Mayfair residence for a while after her arrival.

 

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The poet William Hone’s claim that George IV “spurn’d from his presence the Friends of his youth/And now has not one who will tell him the truth” was not entirely accurate. Although the King did his best to enclose himself in a cocoon of flattery and reassurance, there were still a few brave souls willing to undertake the painful task of bringing him bad news and persuading him to heed it (a process that often took the better part of two hours).

One of these was Lord Sidmouth, who sat at the heart of a spiderweb of paid informants that stretched from Kent to Connaught and the Orkneys. What these informants were telling him was not only that the King was almost universally loathed, but that virtually the entire country was preparing to rise in revolt. (As Brougham would put it: “No spy ever earned his bread by saying ‘I have infiltrated the ranks of your ill-wishers and found them to be harmless.’”) This goes a long way toward explaining why Sidmouth missed the early warning signs from Manchester and Glasgow — they were drowned out by a nationwide cacophony of false alarms.

The one piece of information that came through was that the Queenites were far more numerous than the King’s loyalists — particularly among the lower and middle classes. Even those who had no personal attachment to Caroline, or who were opposed to the concept of monarchy in general, saw her as a weapon with which to attack the status quo. Mary Shelley spoke for many when she said, “It is too great a stretch of the imagination to make a heroine of Queen Caroline, but I wish with all my heart downfall to her enemies.”

And as to the question which was supposed to be at the heart of the affair — had this woman been faithful to her husband, or had she not? — Sidmouth had to report that a surprisingly number of people seemed to believe that (a) Caroline had been indeed been faithful, and (b) if she hadn’t, it was his own fault for treating her so badly. (This was borne out in a farcical way by the crowd at one rally, who had shouted “Three cheers for Mr. Austin, the Queen’s son!”[1]) And of course there was no question in anyone’s mind who had been unfaithful first.

To George, all this meant only one thing — it was time to expose the sins of his wife before Parliament and the nation. The King’s secret weapons, the witnesses the d’Issy Commission had found, would be called forth. Once the honest, virtuous people of the British Isles learned of Caroline’s full iniquity, they would turn away from her in disgust. Thin as this hope might seem, it was shared by Castlereagh and Liverpool, whose ultimate intent was to tar Brougham, Burdett[2], Wood and the rest of the Radicals with the same brush used on the Queen they had shackled their reputations to.

The King’s other unofficially licensed truth-speaker was the Duke of Wellington, who had ordered soldiers to patrol the poorer neighborhoods every night in squads of six to nine after the first riots. The news Wellington brought was even worse. The soldiers in the army had sworn oaths to George III, but had not yet sworn oaths to his son — and were not likely to, the way things were going…


The May 1 mutiny in the Mews illustrates not only the popularity of Queen Caroline, but also the way in which dissatisfaction arising from a variety of different sources manifested as support for her.

About the time the new session began, the King and the Duke of York had begun moving troops into the capital to suppress the Queenite “riots” — many of which seem to have been actual riots, although the King’s faction was not good at drawing the distinction between riots and demonstrations. The King’s Mews at Charing Cross was overcrowded with armed men who were already unhappy at being ordered to suppress their fellow Britons, and whose pay was in arrears. It didn’t help that in the hurry to bring in the army, the chain of command had never been properly established, leaving the troops subject to frequently conflicting orders from their own officers, the Duke of Wellington and the Duke of York.

On May 1, Wellington and York were at Claremont House, putting aside their differences in an attempt to persuade the Queen to leave the country — or at least get her followers under control — when word reached them of a mass demonstration in Charing Cross. Both men were two well known to safely approach the demonstration, so they parked their coaches several blocks away. Even there, the shouts of “God save the Queen!” and “No Queen? No King!” could be clearly heard.

When they sent a servant to investigate, he returned with the horrifying news that the soldiers in the Mews had laid down their arms and joined the crowd. Sir Robert Thomas Wilson, hero of the Peninsular War and MP for Southwark, was speaking to the soldiers, praising their valor and urging them not to allow themselves to be used against their queen or their countrymen.

As quickly as possible, the 2nd Life Guards were summoned, and the crowd dispersed peaceably. The mutinying forced turned out to be three battalions of the 3rd Foot Guards (commanded by the King’s own brother-in-law, the Duke of Gloucester). This regiment was promptly transferred to Portsmouth and replaced with troops whose loyalty the Crown was certain of (or rather, whose disloyalty it was uncertain of).

Sir Robert Peel, investigating on Wellington’s behalf, discovered that tavern-keepers in the area had given free ale to the Guards for the express purpose of drinking the Queen’s health. Apparently they had done this on their own initiative — which proved that not everything the Queenites did could be traced to the machinations of Brougham, Wood and Wilson…


George Tierney and the rest of the mainstream Whig leadership were no happier about being entangled in the Caroline affair than Wellington was. “For the life of me I can feel no interest and little curiosity about these royal squabbles,” lamented Lord Holland. (Part of the problem may have been that Caroline’s principal champion, Henry Brougham, was so cunning and ambitious that he frightened people on his own side.)

Even more caught in the middle was George Canning. On May 8, he resigned his office. Interestingly, the King, who now suspected Canning not only of personal disloyalty but also of having been one of Caroline’s lovers, refused his resignation. Three weeks later, with the Pains and Penalties Bill before Parliament, Canning and his family fled the country for Europe — an act that even at the time was embarrassing to the government.

And, of course, there was William Wilberforce, who saw in the affair immense potential for disaster. “I fear lest it should please God to scourge this nation through the medium of this rupture between the King and Queen,” he said. In spite of poor health and failing eyesight, he did everything in his power to delay the investigation, and it was not enough.

On Saturday, May 13, accompanied by Tories Sir Thomas Acland and James Stuart-Wortley and the independent-minded Henry Bankes, he visited Claremont House in a last-ditch effort to reach a peaceful settlement. The crowd outside the house was hostile (Wilberforce was sure that if he had met them later at night, they would have thrown cobblestones at him) but the Princess persuaded them to let her guests through. She greeted them warmly, chiefly in recognition of Wilberforce’s work against slavery and the slave trade.

But her mother would hear nothing of Wilberforce’s proposals, either that she acquiesce in the omission of her name from the liturgy or that she agree to live in France and make only occasional visits to England’s shores. “If they wished me to stay abroad, why not leave me there in peace?” said Caroline. “No women of character could submit to the insults they have offered.”

Wilberforce returned in failure. The following Monday, the Secret Committee would meet for the first time. They would spend a week examining the evidence and would make their report on Friday, and he had no doubt what they would recommend. “Whatever ensues,” he wrote that evening in a letter to his wife, “it will always be a consolation to me to reflect that I have done my best to prevent all the evils that may happen.”
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


[1] This is reported to have happened IOTL. (If you’ve lost track, Mr. Austin is that guy the Queen adopted as a child and was accused of being the mother of.)
[2] Sir Francis Burdett, a Radical so hardcore that in 1810 he was arrested and temporary locked up in the Tower of London on charges of libelling the House of Commons.

 

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On Monday, May 22, Lord Liverpool brought before Parliament “An Act to deprive her Majesty Queen Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, of the Title, Prerogatives, Rights, Privileges and Exemptions, of Queen-Consort of this Realm, and to dissolve the Marriage between his Majesty and the said Caroline Amelia Elizabeth.” This was universally known as the “Bill of Pains and Penalties” which, as Lady Cowper noted, made it sound “as if she was going to be fried or tortured in some way.”

The Act’s course through Parliament amounted to a divorce trial — but (as Brougham never tired of pointing out) a very strange trial, in which the plaintiff never appeared and the usual standards for evidence did not apply. This was meant to be the opening volley of the King’s war on his wife.

The second volley, however, could not be fired for another six weeks. By the time the bill had its second reading, the witnesses needed to be in London and ready to be brought before the Lords.

Finding witnesses had been no easy task. The people who knew the most of Caroline’s doings over the years were, of course, her servants — and she had always treated her servants well. Few were inclined to betray her, especially to the infamous lout of a husband whose cruelty had driven her abroad in the first place. Those who had suffered alongside her in ‘16 were particularly loyal. However, there were a few who had parted with her on bad terms. And over the course of her journeys Caroline and Pergami had been seen in public by a good many people, some of whom were willing to testify.

Two witnesses in particular were easy to find — Caroline’s former maid, Louise Demont, and her lover Giuseppe Sacchi, a former equerry of the household. They had moved to England last year and were now in London, living as man and wife and calling themselves “the exiled Count and Countess of Milan.”[1] Another witness, Captain Thomas Briggs of HMS Leviathan, was equally at hand. The chambermaid Barbara Kress was living in Karlsruhe. After a strong hint from Metternich, the authorities in the Grand Duchy of Baden released her to testify.

Most of the potential witnesses, however, were in France and Italy. The French government was publicly opposed to the D’Issy Commission, but cooperated with it in private. (Castlereagh took this as a sign that the French were at last learning their place.) However, the two most valuable witnesses drove the hardest bargain. Among other things, they insisted on being transported back to French shores immediately after their testimony.

And then there was Italy. The King’s original spy, the Baron Friedrich Ompteda, was long dead, a casualty of the Other Peninsular War.[2] However, there were others in Italy who might be willing to testify if offered enough money. There were, however, two problems with this.

The first was getting the Italian government to cooperate. In the negotiations, the government took a wolf-and-shepherd approach with the Earl of Westmorland, the British ambassador.

Prime Minister Buonarroti tried to drive the hardest bargain he possibly could. Since Italy was still short of money at this point, and its chief allies, France and the United States, had expenses of their own to meet, most of his proposals were of a financial nature — massive low-interest loans from the Bank of England, or tying the value of the ternesca to the British pound for a period of years. When Westmorland offered the counterproposal that the Royal Navy return certain warships which had been commandeered from the previous Italian states, Buonarroti responded, “Keep them. We’ll build better ones.”

And he was the shepherd. The wolf was King Joachim I, who vowed that Italy would never cooperate with King George’s wicked scheme at all. Queen Caroline, he said, was a personal friend of himself and a friend of the Italian people, and Pergami was a national hero, and it would be the height of dishonor to cooperate in the sullying of their reputations.

Castlereagh, reasoning that bribing a half-dozen Italians could not possibly be as expensive as bribing the entire kingdom, paid the witnesses even more (£20,000 each)[3] and had them smuggled out of the country, along with their immediate families. This was necessary because of the second problem — the prosecution of Queen Caroline was even less popular on the streets of Milan than it was in Terni. The people of Italy saw her as a good Englishwoman (if an unusually German one), unlike the villains who had unleashed the monster Morriset on them. Any Italian who testified on King George’s behalf would probably find it healthiest to move to America afterwards.[4]

Of course, the French and other witnesses soon found out what the Italians were being paid, and insisted on equal payments for themselves (except, of course, for Capt. Briggs, who was taking no money at all for this). Having collected the witnesses, it was then simply a matter of getting them over the seas, onto British shores, past the angry mobs of Queenites and into safe locations until their day in “court.”
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme

[1] IOTL, they weren’t together at this point, but were both calling themselves “count” or “countess.”
[2] IOTL, the star witness against Caroline was Teodoro Majocchi. ITTL, the authors of The Great Scheme don’t know about Majocchi because he died at Lake Como. I’m a little sorry I killed him. IOTL, he was a hilariously inept witness, saying “Non mi ricordo” (“I don’t remember”) in response to so many of Brougham’s questions that it became a national joke.
[3] This is 40% of what he was willing to pay Caroline to stay abroad for one year.
[4] IOTL, of course, the various governments of Italy were more than happy to cooperate with Castlereagh. However, there was still a good deal of popular resistance.

 

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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]

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.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

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.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

While we're all waiting for M. St.-Leger to take the stand, here's a couple of updates on life outside the U.K.


Tuesday, July 18, 1820
11 a.m.
St. Petersburg
Tsar Alexander eyed his foreign minister carefully. "So, the Italians are behind all this trouble in the Balkans, you say?"

"Certainly, Your Majesty, they have taken full advantage of an unstable situation," said Ioannis Kapodistrias. "We do not yet know whether they are doing this of their own initiative or as part of some plot of Talleyrand's, but we can see the results. In the past three months, the Sultan's forces have made only modest gains in Wallachia and been completely stymied in the west, and they were unable to protect their Algerine allies from a sound thrashing by the French and their allies."

"You sound like a man proposing something," said the tsar. "Let us hear it."

"Your Majesty, at the very hour in which the Ottoman Empire trembles on the edge of ruin, Castlereagh finds himself distracted as he never was before and most likely never will be again. It seems to me that God is granting Mother Russia a rare opportunity to strengthen herself among the nations." These days, Kapodistrias knew, speaking of God's will and God's plan was a good way to get the tsar's attention.

"If you mean Constantinople," said Alexander, "I suspect that however distracted Castlereagh may be, if we make a move in that direction he will quickly focus his attention where it belongs."

"Nothing so extravagant, Your Majesty. But Serbia may become a Russian ally, instead of a Turkish vassal. Moldavia, Wallachia, and perhaps even Bulgaria and Armenia may become new principalities within our empire. And if Greece wins its independence as much through our aid as through Italy's, perhaps it will be favorably disposed to an alliance with us. I would certainly do all that is within my power to bring about such an end."

"Earlier, your advice was to wait and see how the rebels fared before taking any action," said Alexander. "Do you believe we have now seen enough?"

"Your Majesty, I would not care to say yet how the rebellions would end, left to themselves," said Kapodistrias carefully, "but my purpose in that advice was to avoid open war. We needn't engage the Turks openly — rather, we can quietly arm and train rebels just as Italy is doing. If Mustafa wins anyway, we have lost very little. If his empire continues to disintegrate, Metternich and Castlereagh will beg you to intervene openly so as to preserve some sort of order.

"And the best part? If we know Italy is intervening, then by now so does Metternich — and so will Castlereagh, as soon as he can tear himself away from this risible business of the British queen. It will be some time before they begin to suspect us as well."

The tsar smiled. "Very well," he said. "You have convinced me."

 

[Lycaon pictus]

At Carême's of Trafalgar, I spent more money than I would care to admit on a meal of conch soup, grilled marlin with jamburghee[1] and morel salad dressed with nimbooghee and rice vinegar, with a dessert of fresh-picked lychees and lime custard. As I ate, I remembered my mother's much simpler cooking — the breakfasts of sweet callakeer[2] sprinkled with cinnamon, dinners of hot mickasookee stew[3] served on gora noodles, and on special occasions, jerked mutton baked in the old tandoor and served with whashenghee[4]. Like all great cuisines, Florida cooking had its origin not in the kitchens of master chefs, but in those of peasant women doing the best they could with the ingredients and skills they possessed.

And it would be hard to think of a better selection of ingredients. Though the climate was unsuitable for the cereals that had sustained the Western world for all its history, many useful vegetables would grow here, including onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes and several varieties of potato. The Muscogees and Seminoles brought with them the classic trinity of beans, squash and maize, and knew how to treat the maize with lime to bring out its full nutritive value. The Hindus, Balinese and Malays, who began coming in 1817, brought rice, yams, taro and many spices. In 1820, the first Cantonese came, bringing the seeds of Chinese vegetables.

As for meat, cattle were mostly owned by Hindus, who of course used them only for milk. However, there was chicken, turkey, goat, fish from the ocean and the occasional bit of waterfowl or venison. (If you weren't Jewish or Muslim, there was also pork.) In 1820 Stamford Raffles had a herd of meat sheep imported from Barbados.[5]

Soon afterward, the orchards and apiaries that were the colony's true raison d'etre[6] began to bear fruit. As honey, perfume and preserved oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, persimmons and red bananas were exported back to the British Isles, the honey and fruit also began showing up on the tables of Floridians.

In the hot, muggy climate of Florida, once milk had been obtained it was quickly turned into clarified butter and milk solids. Since few possessed the proper tools to bottle ghee without moisture and keep it airtight, the precious stuff had to be preserved in other ways — with honey, rum and salt. Soon, cooks of many nationalities began combining this with spices and various fruits, or with caramelized onion and garlic, to create the sauces which became such a distinctive part of Florida cooking.
Michael Sidhu, A Culinary History of North America

[1] Spicy grapefruit sauce.
[2] A sort of pudding or porridge made from rice, bananas and toasted milk solids.
[3] A stew made chiefly from beans, squash and tomatoes, thickened with corn flour.
[4] Spicy peanut sauce.
[5] The Barbados Blackbelly, a slow-growing but hardy breed.
[6] Well, okay, they weren't the reason the colony was founded, but they are the reason it will start offering a return on investment.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Wednesday, July 19
10:30 a.m.
The House of Lords, Westminster
Queen Caroline had stayed at the Hamiltons' Portman Square residence today. She had said she couldn't stand the thought of being in the same room with Aloïse St.-Leger while the woman betrayed her. Brougham hoped this wouldn't be taken as a sign of a guilty conscience.

Unlike M. Jeannot, St.-Leger spoke very little English, and needed an interpreter. From Brougham's point of view, this mostly served to prolong the agony. St.-Leger was saying that Caroline had openly told her that she and Pergami were lovers, and had, in fact, described their lovemaking.

And that wasn't all. She said she had seen Pergami entering Caroline's bedroom after hours nearly every night. She had sat outside the bedroom to keep others from approaching, and had heard the sounds of their intercourse. Those sounds had been loud and passionate. She had seen both of them in a state of dishabille, with the smell of sweat hanging in the air.

(What added an extra dash of pain to this whole experience was that Lady Anne Hamilton had come. From where he was sitting Brougham could clearly hear the aging maiden repeating every salacious word spoken by the interpreter, out loud, to her nearly-deaf brother Archibald.)

This, Brougham reminded himself, was not the end of the world. After all, St.-Leger was another one of their paid witnesses. She could still be discredited on those grounds. Of course, he would have only the one chance to cross-examine her, since she and Jeannot were to be escorted back to France after today… but that was pretty suspicious in itself, wasn't it?

And now St.-Leger was telling everyone more things Caroline had allegedly told her. "Her Majesty said Pergami was the best lover she had ever known," she said.

"The best," said Lord Gifford. "Of how many?"

"Many. A dozen or more. She has known many men. Before her wedding, and after it as well. She said…" Here the interpreter stopped, because St.-Leger had stopped. The witness shut her eyes and took several deep breaths. She seemed to be working up the nerve for something.

Then she turned to where the Princess was sitting and said:

"Pardonnez-moi, Princess, mais votre père est George Canning!"

The translator stood there blinking, his mouth hanging open. But that didn't matter — virtually everyone in the room had enough French to understand what she had just said.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Shortly after 3 p.m.
The Hamilton residence, London
When the servant escorted Charlotte Augusta into the drawing-room, little Leo took one look at his mother's face and immediately hid himself against his grandmother's skirts.

The princess had a hard time blaming him. Feelings of rage, horror and humiliation had been hammering at her since midmorning. Sometimes they had come one at a time, sometimes in quick succession, and sometimes they had mixed inside her like ugly shades of paint to form entirely new emotions. The worst part was not knowing how she should feel — about her mother, about what she had heard, about anything.

Well, at least she knew how to feel about the Cub. She managed to contort her face into something resembling a pleasant smile, then picked him up, cuddled him and reassured him that he had nothing to fear. Then the Leo and a few of the servants took the Cub upstairs.

Charlotte turned to her mother. "Forgive me," she said, rather calmly under the circumstances, "but I simply must ask. My father is George of Hanover, correct? Not George Canning?"

Caroline stood there blinking, her mouth hanging open. There was a lot of that going around.

"Good heavens!" she finally said. "Is that what that woman told you?"

"That is what that woman told everybody."

"Well, it's a lie! I knew she was a liar, but I wasn't expecting that! Canning was never more than a friend!"

Charlotte said nothing. Her mother sounded sincere, but it would have helped if she hadn't said exactly the same thing about Pergami.

Caroline seemed to sense that she was being doubted. "Think, girl!" she said. "I was married to the King of England! Maybe he wasn't much in bed for a man who'd had more women than King Solomon, but do you think I would have jeopardized such a position on that account — to say nothing of my life?" She turned to Brougham. "I hope you made mincemeat of that lying wench in cross-examination."

"I did not," said Brougham, looking unusually displeased with himself. "I did what I could, but she stuck to her story and I could find no contradictions in it. Lord Ellenborough asked whether the Queen had ever consummated your marriage at all, and if so, how she could possibly know who the father was. The witness said 'A woman knows these things'."

Charlotte shook her head. "We are as much beings of flesh and blood as men are," she said. "We have no such magical powers. Any road, it is not enough to say I might be the king's daughter. There must be no doubt."

"I would very much like to question her again," said Brougham. "The plan is for her to be taken back to France tonight, but I can't quite believe Sidmouth would go through with it after such an extraordinary allegation."

 

[Lycaon pictus]

George might have forgiven Charlotte her political radicalism — he had held such sentiments once himself. But in an emotional sense, he had disowned his daughter as soon as she took up her mother's cause. In his mind, the fight between them had taken on a Manichean quality. Everyone in the kingdom was either on his side, or on hers — especially the family.

There was, perhaps (this is largely speculative) more to it than that. If Caroline had drowned in a shipwreck or been killed in Italy, it is difficult to imagine that Charlotte would not at some point have made an effort to reconcile with her father — if for no other reason than the fact that it was unseemly for the king and his heir to be so publicly at odds. But even in this hypothetical case there would have been one problem remaining between them. In Othello, Iago said of Cassio that "He hath a daily beauty in his life/That makes me ugly" — one of many brief lines in which the Bard encapsulated a great deal of psychological insight. If the king had possessed the self-awareness of a Shakespearean stage villain, he might have said something similar about his own daughter. Without even saying a word to him, she would have reproached him simply by existing and being who she was.

Not that she was an ideal woman by Georgian standards. She was willful, opinionated and in her own way as rebellious as he had been. But unlike him, she had made a good thing for herself out of rebellion. After refusing to wed the prince of the Netherlands or the Duke of Gloucester, she had acted on her own initiative and captured a magnificent and highly suitable spouse — something that neither George nor many of his siblings had managed to do. And now she had a little family of her own, with a separate allowance, and no longer needed her father for anything.

Pointless as it may seem to attempt to reconstruct what was going on in the king's mind and soul, it is the only way to even attempt to understand his actions…
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


Wednesday, July 19
Shortly after 5 p.m.
Lord Sidmouth's office, London
"He told you to do what?" said Wellington.

"To put Jeannot and St.-Leger on a carriage to Deptford, where the ship that brought them here was still waiting," said Sidmouth. "So I did. By now they should be well down the Thames and heading for open sea. Such was the agreement."

"Such was the agreement before she called into question the legitimacy of the heir to the throne! Rather an important point, don't you think?"

"I quite agree. However, she has already given her testimony on the matter, and she had nothing to gain by lying. The next step — His Majesty is in firm agreement on this — is to recall Mr. Canning from the Continent, and of course to ask questions of Caroline herself."

"What of those who were servants in Carlton House during the first few months of the royal marriage?" said Robert Peel.

"Of course, them as well," said Sidmouth. "The point is that there is nothing more to be gained by questioning Jeannot or St.-Leger further, and some danger that the Radicals may pressure them into a recantation. Or simply murder them — I needn't remind you how many threats our witnesses have been subjected to."

"Nonetheless," said Wellington, "it would be basic prudence to have her available for later questions."

"I was following His Majesty's orders." Sidmouth was sounding more and more agitated.

"He's the King of England, not the Tsar of All the Russias," said Wellington. "You could have spoken to Liverpool or Castlereagh, or simply acted on your—"

"Damn it all, do you want that Jacobin girl on the throne?"

Wellington was stunned into a momentary silence.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," said Sidmouth, visibly struggling to regain his composure. "But it seems to me that ever since the princess reached her majority and the old king died, England has hung by the thread of one man's life — and him not the youngest of men. Here we have a chance to avert catastrophe… and the Duke of Clarence does have a legitimate son now."

Although Wellington would have laid down his life in defense of the rights of the House of Hanover, there were very few in that House whom he liked or respected. In fact, he thought the current king and his brothers were a load of damned millstones around the government's neck. As for Charlotte Augusta, Wellington had long suspected that she would prove to be at least as bad as her mother. He anticipated her eventual ascent to the throne in much the same way that he anticipated his own eventual demise — as an unfortunate fact of life which it didn't do to dwell on too much.

"If we don't recall her, it would be as good as saying we take today's testimony at face value," said Peel. "Or that we'll take any ready excuse to disinherit the Princess in favor of her infant cousin. Brougham will say so at once — he's arrogant, conniving and power-hungry, but I've never yet heard him called blind or stupid. He's a dangerously clever man."

Wellington, who'd had a certain amount of experience being at cross-purposes with a dangerously clever man, nodded his head. "'Dangerously clever'… that describes the entire opposition rather well," he said, and turned to Sidmouth.

"Do you know why I am a Conservative?" he said. "Why I hate the Radicals? They want to upend every tradition, tear down and rebuild every institution, because they think they're so brilliant they can do a better job of it than all the generations of our ancestors put together… and they're wrong. I thought you understood that, sir. But to push aside the heir to the throne because we don't like her politics, and replace her with an infant who for all we know might grow up to be worse… I can think of a good many words for that, but 'conservative' isn't any of them."

Sidmouth looked a little abashed at this. "Well," he said at last, "the deed is done."

 

[Lycaon pictus]

To everyone in the British Isles — indeed, to everyone in the world who was following the case — St.-Leger's allegation was a bolt from the blue. No one had seen this coming.

The great question, of course, was whether or not to believe it. To George IV himself, here was a sign that the wife he hated had deserved his hatred from the beginning; that Canning had betrayed him long before his resignation; and that the daughter who had turned against him had never been his in the first place. Everyone (even his allies, though they tried to hide the fact) thought him a hateful, worthless man who had driven away his wife, his daughter and everyone else who was not an inveterate flatterer, but now he had evidence that he had been right all along, that his cause was just, that he was as wronged and misused as he felt himself to be.

As for the king's political allies, even they did not truly respect him. The idea that the great philanderer was a cuckold had, perhaps, a certain charm. And certainly the claim was in character with everything they had been saying about Caroline… although they had certainly not expected Canning's name to come up. Nonetheless, it had to be looked into.

This was the official position of Lord Liverpool's government. "We cannot allow such a terrible charge against our Royal family and a valued servant of the Crown to go unanswered," said Castlereagh, demanding the recall of George Canning (a man with whom, as many now recalled, he had once fought a duel).

Caroline denied the allegation at once — as did Mr. Canning, as soon as he learned about it. (The Cannings had at this point arrived in Vienna. Upon hearing the news from London, Metternich immediately had them escorted to Rijeka and hired a ship to take them home.)

As for the Queenites, they not only considered the claim a lie, they believed they knew whence it had come. According to the pamphlet The Plot Against Our Princess (still in circulation at this point) the Tories had a scheme afoot to disinherit Charlotte Augusta in favor of little Victor Alexander — and had the government not brought Aloïse St.-Leger to London at great expense, paid her to utter these dreadful lies and returned her safely as soon as her work was done? What more proof could anyone ask for? And there was only one reason why the Tories would want to cast the princess aside — they intended to do away once and for all with the last traces of freedom in the British Isles, and knew that she would never stand for it…


In a dozen cities, not just Manchester and Glasgow, the Radicals were preparing for civil unrest. Although neither Burdett nor Wilson nor, certainly, Brougham had any intention of initiating violence, none of them had any doubt as to the will of Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh. Unemployed workingmen met in the fields outside the cities to drill like soldiers — which many of them had been not long ago — training themselves in the art of organized protest.

And then the other shoe dropped…
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme


Saturday, July 22
About 2 p.m.
The Tower of London
One good thing about having an office in the Tower of London, Wellington thought, was that there were several layers of walls between yourself and the angry mobs.[1] Good solid stone walls, too, and a wide stretch of ground. You could hardly hear them at all.

Not that Wellington was ignoring the public unrest. Just this morning Thomas Erskine, Earl of Kellie, had handed him a very long anonymous letter he had received, which included some alarming passages: “Castlereagh may calculate upon the support of the army to degrade the Queen, against the wishes and will of the people, but I will tell him, not one hair of her head falls to the ground by the consent of the brave soldiers who owe her their allegiance as their rightful queen… if he will contrive to bring all the troops around the metropolis together, he may ascertain their feelings towards the conspirators against her Majesty.”[2] Wellington wished he could have laughed it off, but from what he was hearing from his own subordinates, he wasn't so sure.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

"Message from Lord Castlereagh, Your Grace," said the boy, handing him a sealed envelope. "He says it requires your immediate attention… begging your pardon."

"Thank you." Wellington was not in the habit of allowing unread correspondence to pile up on his desk. The last time he had put off reading a message was five years ago at Roxbury, and he had been preoccupied with winning a battle at the time. He took the note. It couldn't possibly be as bad as the news he'd gotten at Roxbury.

"By your leave, sir," said the messenger, and ducked out. Probably he had been ordered to leave immediately, and not to attempt to find out what this was.

Wellington read the note.

It was worse than the news he had gotten at Roxbury.


[1] Here, as IOTL, Wellington is currently serving as Master-General of the Ordnance.
[2] Erskine got this letter in September IOTL.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Saturday, July 22
About 4:30 p.m.
The Brougham residence
"Well, this is interesting," said Henry Brougham.

"What?" said his wife.

"His Grace the Duke of Wellington requests the pleasure of our company at Apsley House tonight."

"I think I can survive a short carriage ride," said Margaret, who was (as best they could tell) about seven months pregnant. "But I should say it's a little late in the day to be sending out dinner invitations."

"I dare say he's been quite busy today — as indeed have I," said Brougham. "No doubt this has something to do with the rather dramatic news from Calais."

"What dramatic news from Calais?" said Mrs. Brougham.

"You haven't heard?"

"For some reason," said Mrs. Brougham, cradling her belly, "I have not been out and about much of late. Pray tell me before I run mad with anticipation."

"Or walk mad, rather," said Brougham. She threw a cushion at him.

"Very well," he said. "After Madame St.-Leger's rather dramatic testimony, Lord Sidmouth had her and M'sieur Jeannot escorted onto a steamboat bound for Calais. No sooner had these two worthies stepped off the boat onto French soil than they repudiated every single word of their testimony before the Lords. More than that — they claimed that Lord Liverpool and his cabinet had coached them in what to say."

Mrs. Brougham was stunned into momentary silence.

"So," he continued, "shall we to the lion's den for supper?"

"I wouldn't miss it."

 

[Lycaon pictus]

I wanted to put the Crowning Moment of Conversation between Wellington and Brougham all in one post, but that's taking too long, so here's the first part.


About 6 p.m.
Apsley House
Given the urgency of the situation, Wellington was finding it hard to keep the dinner conversation on a light note. He didn't like Henry Brougham, and he had invited the man here for a reason.

Finally he broke the ice. "First, Mr. Brougham," he said, "whatever you may think of their Lordships, they did not conspire with St.-Leger, nor with any other witness, to defame the parentage of Charlotte Augusta." Wellington almost said as far as I know or to the best of my knowledge, but he stopped himself. He did not want to give Brougham an opening to drive a wedge between him and the Government. Inviting the man to dinner was chancy enough.

"Quite so," said Brougham. "Even Sidmouth, I think, would not be such a fool as to coerce lies out of witnesses when he would have no power to hold them to their stories once they were out of his grasp."

"Forgive me, gentlemen," said Catherine. "but this has become rather confusing. Did that Frenchwoman lie when they questioned her, or when she arrived home?"

"She lied on both occasions," said Wellington. "The only thing she said that we know to be true is that she perjured herself before the Lords."

"What about that pamphlet?" said Catherine. "The one telling those horrible stories about their Lordships? Where did that come from?"

"I suspect our guest," said Wellington, glancing toward Brougham, "could tell you more about the origins of those calumnies than I could."

Brougham nodded. "If you're speaking of the allegations in The Plot Against Our Princess," he said, "I can't prove anything, but I have a suspicion that those stories came from someone in France… possibly Talleyrand himself."

"And scarcely three months later, along comes Aloïse St.-Leger to provide the mob with something that looks like proof," said Wellington. "And now the Regency Council is sheltering her and Jeannot."

Brougham nodded. "Fouché has taken them into 'protective custody,'" he said. "No doubt he is already returning them, considerably wealthier, to the obscurity from which he plucked them in the first place.[1]"

"Do you think Fouché is behind this scheme, or Talleyrand?"

“More likely, the two of them together,” said Brougham. "They're both born conspirators. If the two of them were to join forces and plot our ruin… well, circumspice.”[2]

"In case anyone was worried that he'd forgotten his Latin," said Mrs. Brougham, smiling.

"The key to the whole thing," Brougham continued, "is that this fellow Browne, the King's agent in Paris — I believe it was our two French witnesses who first approached him, and not the reverse. Am I correct in that?"

"You are," said Wellington.

"Well then — three years ago, when our queen first moved to Paris, Fouché planted them in her household as a matter of course. I doubt he expected anything to come of it at the time — he keeps track of everyone of any importance in France.

"Then along came Browne. I don't know how quickly he made a name for himself, but last year, when my wife and I went on our honeymoon in Paris, he had already become something of a local legend… the Non-Secret Agent. Is it such a great leap to suppose that, with all France already knowing Browne for a spy, Talleyrand would discover who he truly reported to?"

"Not at all," said Wellington.

"So — our witnesses attached themselves to Browne and served as double agents. They told him what his paymasters wanted to hear, which was nothing of any value to Lanjuinais or the Regency Council… and who knows what secrets they extracted from him in return?"

Wellington suddenly remembered something he had read in some bit of correspondence — that according to Browne, Jeannot was a great anglophile and very curious about all things British. A professional spy would have been on his guard against such manipulative flattery, but Browne was no professional.

"The whole world has known for many years how matters stand between George and Caroline," Brougham continued. "As soon as it became clear that the King's government would aggressively pursue divorce proceedings, and that this would meet some opposition, Fouché and Talleyrand realized the true potential for mischief in the situation and devised the great scheme which we now see bearing fruit."

"And you deduced all these things by yourself?" said Catherine. "You really are a genius!"

"Oh, don't go swelling his head," said Mrs. Brougham lightly. "We might have to widen the doorframe to get him out of the room." She caressed her husband's arm. Why do loving couples always have to flaunt their happiness? thought Wellington.


[1] This is the part where I admit that Jeannot and St.-Leger (I mentioned here that those weren't their real names, which was a hint that they weren't on the level) are the only two characters (apart from the newborns, of course) that I invented. I needed two people that the British Foreign Office would never have heard of and wouldn't suspect until it was too late, so… we'll say that IOTL they existed, but never distinguished themselves enough to come to the attention of history.
[2] “Look around you.”

 

[Lycaon pictus]

The remains of dinner had been cleaned up. Wellington and Brougham sat in the drawing-room, enjoying a repectable old single malt. Catherine was giving Mrs. Brougham a tour of the house.

"Between the two of us," said Wellington, "do you really believe the queen has not committed adultery?"

“In my opinion, Caroline is pure in-no-cence,” said Brougham, drawing out the last word so it wasn’t quite clear whether he was saying innocence or in no sense, and smiling as he did so.

This man is entirely too much in love with his own wit, thought Wellington. Well, two can play at that game. “Then may your wife be like her.”

“If I were such a fool as to treat my Margaret as shabbily as our king treated our queen, I would deserve far less than that,” said Brougham, not missing a beat.

Wellington sighed. "Very well, then. His Majesty is a great baby in his temperament, a drunken, gluttonous, lecherous wastrel in his appetites, and a lout and a blackguard in his… everything. I concede these truths readily, Mr. Brougham. Did you suppose I ever believed otherwise? Do you think we Tories bow down to him five times a day? We are not on his side, but on the side of peace and order.

"Which brings me to why I invited you here. Peace and order, which are in greater danger than at any time since the Jacobite risings. I won't allow that. If Her Majesty loves her adopted kingdom, she won't allow it either."

"You sound as though you wish her to surrender the baby rather than split it," said Brougham. "And though I have no doubt of your sincerity, I note that you are making this appeal not to the King and your fellow ministers, but to me, and through me to her Majesty. Perhaps we seem more… susceptible to reason?"

"Take it as a compliment, if you like."

"I most certainly shall. But I must tell you that Her Majesty has suffered too greatly to surrender now, or to allow slanderers and paid liars to prevail over her good name. Nor will Her Highness be denied her rightful place."

"At what price?" said Wellington. "I have heard the story — by all means correct me if I have heard it wrong — of how you yourself remonstrated with the princess the night she ran away from home. 'The multitude will fill the streets and the park, the soldiers will be called out, blood will flow, and in a hundred years it will never be forgotten that you were the cause of the mischief. The English people so hate blood that you will never get over it.'[1]

"Is that not true now? Is the name of Queen Consort — a title which holds no real power — worth seeing her supporters cut down and shot in the streets? Is her reputation worth the hatred and bitterness that would ensue?"

"I detect a veiled threat beneath your tone of concern," said Brougham. "A rabble of mechanics and artisans being killed or driven off by cavalry, or perhaps a 'whiff of grapeshot' — is that how you believe it would happen? Does it seem tolerable to you that such things should come to pass in our cities? If so, I must warn you the time has already come and gone when we could have been crushed so easily. There are soldiers on both sides, Your Grace — soldiers and officers, as I think you know.

"In fact," Brougham continued in musing tones, "I believe those loyal to the queen now outnumber those who favor the king, particularly if one includes the many discharged veterans who are searching these isles for gainful employment. Now, if you were on king’s side, that by itself would ensure the two sides were more evenly matched. If you were to choose the queen’s side, of course, the war would be over almost as soon as—”

“Why, you overgrown schoolboy!” Wellington suppressed the urge to grab the man by the shoulders and shake him. “Listen to yourself! Sitting there, blithely speaking of civil war on Britain’s shores — have you ever seen war? Have you the least notion of its horrors?”

“I have not,” said Brougham matter-of-factly, “but you have.”

The duke’s blood ran cold. Brougham might be a pampered civilian, but he was also a dangerously intelligent man. His calculation of the respective strength of the king’s faction and the queen’s had been very close to Wellington’s. For Caroline’s supporters to overwhelm the established order and march triumphant into Whitehall would be bad enough, but a protracted conflict between rival factions of near-equal force…

Wellington’s mind, educated by decades of warfare, had no trouble conjuring up images of the conflict. Briton killing Briton on land and sea, England’s countryside ravaged like that of Spain or Italy… her overseas possessions snapped up by France or the United States or whichever power was close at hand and feeling opportunistic… India, Ireland, perhaps even Scotland rising in rebellion… in the end, it would hardly matter who won the civil war. The British Empire would have fallen, never to rise again.

And Brougham knew it. That was the real meaning behind his bland and airy words. Join us, betray your king, help us crush your allies and friends… or watch your country burn and by your own actions pour more oil on the fire. Your choice.

"Damn you," he said.

"It was not I who conjured up the spectre of bloodshed here," said Brougham.

No, but there is bloodshed and there is BLOODSHED, thought Wellington. Britain can survive the use of force against an angry mob or two, and would probably be the healthier for it. It can't survive civil war. But since Brougham's supporters would be in those mobs, only a fool would expect him to see things that way.

Wellington drew a breath. Bullying Brougham into submission had been a strategem he hadn't wanted to use. Now it was time for the strategem he really didn't want to use.

"I have a proposition," he said, "that ends the matter without dishonor to Caroline. When next Parliament meets, I should like you to put it forward as though it were your own. Take credit for it, if you wish. I shall merely work to rally the Government and the Tories behind it." What he was about to suggest was, he thought, the sort of ploy Brougham himself might plausibly come up with.[2] Certainly it was nothing he wanted his own name attached to.

"Do you not recall," Wellington continued, "that at the time George and Caroline were joined in holy matrimony — or some sort of matrimony, at least — he was already married?"

Brougham looked a little surprised by this, but nodded. "If you are speaking of Maria Fitzherbert," he said, "that marriage was and is null and void, according to the Act of '72."

"'What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder'," quoted Wellington. "Parliament overstepped its bounds with that act. Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Jewish… a marriage is a marriage.

"Then do you see that there is no need for these proceedings at all? As a victim of bigamy, Caroline's marriage would be annulled at once, with no blame nor opprobrium attached to her. She would be free to marry again, if she chose. As Duchess of Brunswick, a goodly sum would be settled on her, and she would be free to come or go from the kingdom as she pleased." Wellington took a breath. As much as he had come to despise the King, this felt hideously wrong. "As for George of Hanover… as husband to a Catholic he would be required to vacate the throne."

"But not in favor of his daughter," said Brougham. "Very clever, Your Grace — but if you rule the king’s marriage to Caroline null and void, you declare Charlotte Augusta illegitimate and bar her from the throne as surely as if Canning were in truth her father. And from the perspective of the Whigs, King Frederick would be no great improvement over King George." Wellington had had his own disagreements with the Duke of York, but had to admit Frederick was a far better man than his brother… and, of course, even more of a Tory.

"I do have a counterproposal, however," said Brougham. "I propose that Her Majesty bring her own divorce proceedings against the king. You must admit that for her to prove adultery and cruelty on his part would be simplicity itself.

"Of course, we could hardly keep him on as king under the circumstances. We shall have to pension him off as Prince-Viceroy of Bengal or something, name Caroline the Queen Mother, and give the crown and all its attendant powers to the one legitimate heir."

“That girl?”

“That ‘girl’ is a woman now. A lady of twenty-four, with a husband and two children. Elizabeth was only one year older when she took the throne — and that was in a far more perilous age than this. And you have made it abundantly clear that His Majesty is a liability you and the other Conservatives would be willing to part with."

“Not to replace him with a monarch under your control!”

Brougham laughed. “With all due respect, Your Grace,” he said, “if you had spent any great length of time in Her Highness' company, you would not suspect her of being under anyone’s control. She is as stubborn as her father, as forthright and outspoken as her mother, and a good deal cleverer than either.”

"God help us all," said Wellington. "And for all your talk of 'suspicion' that Talleyrand was the source of the lies put forward in that pamphlet, I think you know more than you are telling. Does it trouble you at all that you are in effect conspiring with the French?"

“You might as easily say the King was conspiring with the French,” said Brougham. “It was he who set all this in motion, you know. He had a plan to divorce his wife and live out the days of his reign in the style of one of the more notorious Roman emperors. Seeing this, Caroline devised a plan to retain her crown by placing herself squarely on the side of myself and the other Whigs and enlisting our support.

“Lords Liverpool and Sidmouth in their turn devised a plan to tie Caroline to the Whigs in the public mind, and then to discredit both by painting her as a shameless adulteress. Fouché and Talleyrand had yet another plan — to make use of all these other plans to exacerbate the divisions in Britain until the kingdom was torn apart.

“And now there is my plan — which is to thwart the French plan, preserve the peace and give Britannia a real monarch again… one we can all take pride in, one who is not a disgrace to the kingdom and a walking broadsheet for republicanism.

“Now tell me, Your Grace — what’s your plan?”



[1] This isn't an exact quote, but it's fairly close to what Brougham said to Charlotte. (Her father was trying to marry her to the Prince of Orange, and she didn't like it.)
[2] In fact, it was exactly the sort of ploy Brougham himself did come up with IOTL as a solution to the Caroline affair… but of course the circumstances were different.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Thanks, everyone.

Sunday, July 23
1 p.m.
Carlton House
"I beg your pardon?" said King George IV in dangerous tones. He had summoned his cabinet again, possibly not trusting them out of his sight. They had met briefly outside his house.

"We are all in agreement on this," said Lord Liverpool. "The Pains and Penalties Act must be abandoned tomorrow." Castlereagh, Eldon, Bexley[1], Harrowby[2] and Westmorland[3] all nodded.

So did Wellington. "I have reason to believe that the Radicals are plotting to turn the proceedings against us, to depose you in favor of your daughter and—"

"She is not my daughter!"

"If we drop the matter now, we can still salvage the peace," continued Wellington. Last night he had felt terribly guilty about having plotted to depose George himself. Now that he was in the man's presence again, those feelings were slipping away.

"Do you know that girl and that woman both had Sir Charles Hesse as a lover?"[4] said George. "Why hasn't that been addressed?"

"It is too late for that," said Castlereagh. "I will not have another 'infallible' plan explode in my face."

"No one is asking you to invite the queen back into your home, Your Majesty," said Liverpool. "Your marriage to her will remain a legal fiction, as it has these many years."

"Endure it, Your Majesty!" spat George. "Can't be helped! It's for the best! Again and again and again! Was ever a man subjected to such constraints, such coercions—"

"Do you call this constraint?" said Wellington. "All your life, Your Majesty, you have enjoyed at ratepayers' expense such luxuries as few men even dream of — endless nights of parties, wine, games and music, well-born women lining up to be your next mistress — and all that was ever asked in return was that you endure a bad marriage, a thing many men suffer with far less recompense!" Myself, for one, he thought.

"I would have traded a good many nights of gaming and drinking to marry a woman I loved!" said George. "And to be forced — forced, if I wanted my rightful inheritance — to couple with that… stinking thing…" He gagged a little, but continued. "While everyone assured me it was for the best, and all London celebrated because their prince had found true love at last… and how was I rewarded for my pains? With that… cuckoo's egg!"

"Your Majesty, that allegation was proven to be—"

"If she's not a bastard in the flesh, she certainly is one in spirit! Goneril and Regan were better daughters!" He put his head in his hands.

There was a long pause. Then Lord Liverpool spoke.

"Your Majesty, we all sympathize with your position, but—"

"No," interruped George. "No. I have had enough. I have suffered enough. I will not go to church to hear her blessed and prayed for. I will not have her by my side at my coronation. I had no choice but to obey my father, but I need not obey you lot — I am king. I know what a great inconvenience that is to everyone, but it is the truth. If Parliament will not satisfy me in this, then I shall dismiss Parliament as is my right.[5]

"And do not presume to threaten me with a Whig majority, either. Should that happen, the lot of you go back to the back benches and I will still be king. I can dismiss a Whig Parliament just as easily."

There was another long pause.

"So be it, Your Majesty," said Liverpool, "but for the sake of the kingdom I have one request."

"What is it?"

"I request," said Liverpool, gesturing in Wellington's direction, "that His Grace be permitted to continue his services as Master-General of the Ordnance, should you choose to dismiss the rest of us. If things come to the worst… we may have need of him."

"Very well, if he can refrain from offering me unsolicited advice."

As they were leaving Carlton House, Wellington turned to Liverpool. "Should I thank you for that?" he said.

"No, you shouldn't," said Liverpool. "I did it because if the fate of the kingdom were to rest on one man's shoulders, I would choose you to be the man."

* * *

7 p.m.
Apsley House
Wellington looked down the length of the table at his wife. Once, a young violinist had loved and desired that lady more than anything — so much so that he had abandoned his music and gone into the army to win her father's approval. (He had actually burned his violin. Damned silly gesture, he could have sold it and bought something useful… but perhaps at the time it had been necessary for him.)

And it had worked. Now she was his wife. Ironically, the feeling between them had long since vanished. In a greater irony, he had found he was better at war than at music. If that young fool had been given the freedom he desired, he could not possibly have made a life for himself that was as satisfying — or as useful to king and country — as the one Providence had chosen for him. Which was why he had very little sympathy with those who agitated for greater freedom… and no sympathy at all for the king.

"Of course, if we choose to continue with the trial," he said, "then while Lords are trying the Queen, Brougham will have the Commons try the King. And, again, the King will dismiss Parliament."

"If he tries to govern without Parliament, it will mean chaos," said Catherine. "I know that much. What will you do?"

"That is what I have been asking myself again and again. If I obey him, it will only prolong the ruin of the kingdom."

"Why not resign, then?"

"Because I wish to avert the danger to the kingdom, not merely wash my hands of it. If I resign, the situation will be the same as it is now, but with some empty-headed lackey doing my work in my place.

"The only other option would be to defy His Majesty and His Grace the Duke of York. I could do that, and I think the army would follow me. But if I did, I might as well crown myself King Arthur II… or, more fittingly, Emperor Wellington Bonaparte I."

"I must say, you would certainly make a better king than—"

"Silence," he said in a voice he might have used to reprimand a subordinate.

Catherine was silent.

"I am not the Thane of Glamis and Cawdor," he said. "Do not say such a thing to me again."

"Forgive m—" Wellington motioned for her to be quiet.

"It never happened," he said. Then he set about eating his dinner, which was starting to get cold.

Of course he'd make a better king, and so would nine out of ten random Englishmen. But if the crown was up for grabs, if a general couldn't win three battles in a row without becoming a threat to the Government, Britannia would soon suffer the fate of the Roman Empire. That was why legitimacy mattered, even if it meant the occasional rule of a millstone such as George.

Some other way forward would have to be found.


[1]Chancellor of the Exchequer.
[2]Lord President of the Council.
[3]Lord Privy Seal. His son, whom I mistakenly referred to earlier as the Earl of Westmorland (I'll clean it up for the Finished Timelines version) is the British ambassador to Italy.
[4]Charlotte herself told her father that Caroline tried to play matchmaker between her and Hesse. This was years ago, when things hadn't gone completely toxic between George and Charlotte.
[5]IOTL, when his cabinet abandoned the war on Caroline, George threatened to resign in favor of his brother Frederick, and afterwards tried to have Lord Liverpool removed. Here, what he sees as his daughter's betrayal has pushed him over the edge.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

I started reading this a week ago and thought it was good. But the way it is now goes much further than that. Well done, sir.

Wonderful, bloody wonderful! I Wish I could write like that

I gotta say, I was initially bored by the royal family-related updates. But having reached the most recent one, they have become my favourite part of the timeline

Will we see updates focusing on the South American theocracy?

Thank you both.

The growth of Carlos' new government and how it interacts with the existing colonial power structure is something I really want to do justice to, but I will get to it. In the meantime…



Monday morning, July 24. The moment of truth had arrived.

The Lords' first order of business was an address by Henry Brougham, whose tones of unctuous concern did nothing to disguise the true nature of his speech. "I pray your lordships to pause," he said. "You are standing upon the brink of a precipice." He advised them that if they found against the Queen, "it will be the only judgment you ever will pronounce which will fail in its object, and return upon those who give it." He called the Lords "the ornaments" of the nation, but reminded them that "you could flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the root and stem of the tree." Brougham went further: "Save the country, that you may continue to adorn it [emphasis added]—save the Crown, which is in jeopardy—the Aristocracy which is shaken—the Altar itself, which never more can stand secure amongst the shocks that shall rend its kindred throne."[1]

One would have to go back centuries to find anyone offering naked threats such as these to a House of Parliament. In case anyone needed reminding where the power to make these threats good came from, Brougham said that although Queen Caroline's name had been struck from the liturgy, "she has indeed, instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt prayers of the people." Solicitor General Robert Gifford[2] was ready to defy the Queenites — "My lords, God forbid that the time should ever arrive when such threats should have any weight in this assembly!" — but most of the Lords seemed to want to get this affair behind them and move on with the business of state…


No sooner had the Lords voted to abandon the Pains and Penalties Act than Lord Liverpool had to inform them that the King had chosen to exercise his right to dismiss them. Before they could act on this, however, someone else spoke up.

It was Charlotte Augusta Princess of Wales. "Given the present state of the realm," she said, "I request that Parliament delay its dissolution for a period of one week, so that it may take necessary actions to assuage public fears." She emphasized that she knew she had no right to command them and would never ask them to defy her father, but hoped they would honor her request as an heir to the throne and who had reached her majority.

This of course would be an unprecedented move. To the Tories, however, it was not only a chance to salvage something from this debacle, but welcome proof that Charlotte was her own woman and not merely Brougham's puppet. As for the Whigs, they did not wish to risk civil war in order to achieve power. The motion passed both Houses as quickly as anything has ever passed in Parliamentary history. (When asked if she did not fear one day having her power compromised in turn by one of her own children, Charlotte replied, "If ever I forget the good of the nation, I hope they shall act as I have today.")

The very next day, the King rescinded his dissolution of Parliament. His Majesty, who had begun the year as king in all but name, was now king in name only. If the next election produced a Whig majority and he dissolved it at once, his daughter could intervene again, asking for a "delay" of who knew how long. By taking this step, however, he could at least put off the Whigs' day of triumph.

But even as Parliament was quietly burying the King's attempt at divorce, the people in the northern cities were demonstrating — literally — that this was no longer simply a matter of who was their favourite member of the royal family…
Bertrand Martineau and P.G. Sherman, The Great Scheme



[1] This is the same speech Brougham gave IOTL in front of the Commons. I could not possibly improve it.
[2] I earlier referred to him as "Lord Gifford." My mistake. He wasn't raised to the peerage until 1824. I'll clean it up in post.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Man, I've let things slide again. I will get back to the story, and in the meantime…



Although it would be two years before the United States National University was ready to accept a single student, President Adams and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Calhoun were already arguing over the curriculum.

Not without reason. First, USNU was only the beginning of the President's plans for education. His vision — which was also the Democratic-Republican vision — was of secondary schools and universities (if not federal-run, then at least held to federal standards) throughout the nation. What Adams had learned during the establishment of Ferry Farm, Fort LeBoeuf and Sinepuxent was that it was a good idea to already have a pool of well-trained teachers to hire from by the time the school was ready to open its doors. Thus, USNU was intended in part as a "normal school" — that is, a school for the instruction of teachers, the first of its kind in the nation[1] and a powerful investment in the future. Adams favored a balanced curriculum of sciences, law, philosophy and the classics, while Calhoun was interested in training the next generation of engineers, scientists and businessmen — not to put too fine a point on it, the men who would finance the next war and build the tools to win it. (In this, it should be noted, he was opposing his own constituents. The postwar nationalist enthusiasm was wearing off, and the planters who dominated South Carolina politics were reluctant to part with their tax dollars for the purpose of educating other peoples' children.)

And the Dead Roses' long-term plans would affect some parts of the nation more than others. The Census Act of March 14, 1820 stated that the census would not only inquire whether the respondents were engaged in agriculture, commerce or manufacturing, but would also survey the state of literacy and school attendance.[2] It further mandated that the data be collected by the new Census Office.[3] But both Adams and Calhoun had a pretty good idea of what it would find — that the southern states lagged well behind the northern states in education. This was a disparity that needed to be corrected, and it would strongly affect the placement of future federal schools.

The problem was that USNU would be under the jurisdiction of Secretary of Domestic Affairs King. The man already chosen to head the university was Benjamin Silliman, a noted scientist — and, like King, an abolitionist. For these men to set the standards for the education of the South's teachers in philosophy and law would be simply unacceptable to Calhoun, and to a good many others. Ultimately, the chairman won this battle, and was able to return to his constituents in this election year and report that he had saved them all from a plague of abolitionist philosophers. The long-term effect that opening educational opportunities for lower- and middle-class whites would have on Southern society would be a subtler matter…
Charles Cerniglia, The Road to The Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840


[1] IOTL, the first normal school was established in Massachusetts in 1839.
[2] IOTL, this sort of data wasn't collected until 1840.
[3] Another thing that didn't happen until 1840 IOTL.