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."
although I suspect he does].
