By George! – A Proper Education

If you thought the way George the III kept his heir in baby clothes until well past the point where he could speak was bad enough, wait until you hear about the way he was raised from then on.  Take it away, Mr. Al.

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It didn’t help matters that dad considered children other than his brother to be totally unsuitable companions. Any adults around the Prince also had to be carefully screened for moral suitability. The outside world was a horror show of vice and debauchery and the King was not going to let any of that reach his boy.

The key to that was to keep him busy with morally uplifting tasks. And the key to making sure the lessons stuck was to beat him, and his brother, whenever they seemed to be slipping. They apparently slipped often because they were beaten often. According to one of the princesses, “They were held up by their tutors to be flogged, like dogs, with a long whip.”

This came about after D’Arcy returned from Europe and decided that certain vigor was lacking in the boys educational program, and lasted until the Prince was thirteen,  at which point D’Arcy resigned his post, claiming his subordinates were undermining him. The subversion was causing the Prince to hold him in ill-concealed contempt. The man deemed responsible was one Cyril Jackson. He got the sack. Then Doctor Markham got the sack for defending Jackson.

D’Arcy was replaced by Lord Bruce, who got the sack in pretty short order and was replaced by his brother, the Duke of Montagu; “One of the weakest and most ignorant men living.” Was one contemporary source’s take on the Duke. However, he was said to possess a “formal coldness of character.” This, in turn, made him “uncommonly well fitted for the post.”

Doctor Markham’s replacement was Doctor Richard Hurd; a stiff old bishop that the King hoped would impose an even stricter regime than the boys had already been subjected to. The Bishop wasn’t a total wash. He was said to have courtly manners that “”Endeared him highly to devoted old ladies.” With Hurd’s appointment, Smelt got the sack. His replacement was Lieutenant- Colonel George Hotham. There would be no more lollygagging by the Prince and his brother.

As stern as his education was, it accomplished what dad had set out to do. The Prince, at age sixteen was far better educated than dad had been at the same age. There were other differences also. The Prince was an extremely handsome sixteen year old, with thick chestnut brown hair and bright blue eyes. He had the manners and poise of an experienced courtier. He was very charming, easygoing and affable.

Most people, the ladies in particular, were very impressed. The Prince, at sixteen, was a chick magnet. Not everyone was pleased with the social graces the Prince had acquired. Along with his capacity to charm, the Prince had also acquired the capacity to lie through his teeth to mom and dad about his social activities. Even though he was still living at home, he had already started running with the wrong crowd.

Much to the King’s chagrin, that wrong crowd very much included the Prince’s uncles, the Dukes of Cumberland and Gloucester. Why is it that whenever uncles are encountered in English royal history, it’s always as the heavy. It hardly seems fair, but there it is. Uncles are not going to get much good press in this account because they don’t deserve any.

Where was I? Ah, yes. To say these gents were drunkards and wastrels would be to point out the obvious. They were Hanover boys; and Hanover boys that did not sit on thrones found other ways to entertain themselves. Not only did Cumberland run his house in Pall Mall like a casino; it was widely rumored that the Dukes wife was teaching the Prince the joys of other men’s wives. A habit that the Prince would cling too till the end of his days.

Yes, leading the Prince of Wales down the path to perdition was a favorite pastime of the lads uncles, but they couldn’t do it alone. As essentially good as the Prince was, he had a knack for picking VERY bad people to hang out with. It isn’t that some of these gentlemen, and ladies, were indifferent to the social mores of the day. It’s just that they were actively, sometimes violently, opposed to anything that would stand in the way of their having fun.

Not all the people the Prince hung out with came from the Better Sorts. Most, if not all, of the men did. Not that the Prince had anything against the Lesser Sorts. He talked with people from all stations of life with an easy familiarity. While the men were of rank, the women, as we shall see, could be from any old where.

There were profound differences in the way the Prince was perceived by others at age sixteen. Where the ladies saw charm, dad saw vanity. Where the Prince’s friends saw an open, generous nature, dad saw proflagrancy. If the boy took some time off from his sunrise to bedtime regime of official activities to relax, it could only be because the Prince was willful in his rebellion to the Kings wishes.

Dad was not inclined to cut his son any slack. Unfortunately, neither was he inclined to spend any quality time with the lad. What the Prince got were orders transmitted through royal functionaries. What dad got was a son who grew to bitterly resent his father’s intrusions into his personal life. He also bitterly resented his father keeping him on such short rations. How could he behave like a true prince when dad refused him a decent allowance? Kids! Some things never change.

At least there were a few hobbies he could busy himself with while waiting for his ship to come in. As mentioned earlier, other men’s wives could always be counted on to enliven an otherwise dull night at St James Palace. For example, there was the wife of one of the kings grooms. Said Fraulein Charlotte Albert, one of the Queen’s German attendants, This wife was, “A great slattern, and more low and vulgar than that class of people usually are.” One wonders how she became such an athority on “That class of people.”

The prince didn’t see her that way. Or perhapes he did but didn’t care. Either way, her husband was promoted from the stables to a job in the house so that his wife’s comings and goings from the prince’s bedroom would draw a minimum of attention. And wouldn’t you know it? Fraulein Albert didn’t approve of HIM either. “A dressed up horror, impertinent and disgusting.” Some people are just sooooo hard to please.

But this sort of tomfoolry was only practice, as it were, for what would become the Prince’s lifelong advocation. Falling madly, and I do mean madly, violetly, in love with totally inappropreate women. The first was Mary Hamilton, daughter of the third Duke of Hamilton. It was the first time the Prince had fallen in love. It was also the last time he would fall in love with a woman who could be considered respectable. Miss Hamilton was twenty-four at the time. She thought the Prince was a nice enough fellow, for a sixteen year old. Good looking, to be sure. But much, MUCH too inpetious.

His declarations of love, there are 75 surviving letters from the Prince to Miss Hamilton, did not have the desired effect. Rather the opposite, not surpriseingly. Mary told the Prince that any romantic notions on his part were not acceptable to her. She had also heard some rather unsavory stories about the Prince’s activities. Party boys did not impress her, prince or no prince. She would be happy to be his friend, but that was all. Period.

If the Prince cared anything for her at all, he would stop getting his undies in a bunch over her. And he did! Just as soon as he found another female to fixate on. Fortnately, as far as the Prince was concerned, this one would prove to be a very different kettle of fish, Girl-wise, than Miss goody-two-shoes Hamilton. 

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Thank you Mr. Al.  I had no idea the Prince Regent has such strict teachers.  I’m looking forward to next weeks installment.  Hint, hint.

Alice