I took liberties with Mr. Al’s blog last week. He intended to end with the sentence that I moved to the beginning of this week’s history lesson. I preferred to end with “Discretion wasn’t in his vocabulary. He couldn’t behave discreetly if his life depended on it. But… he was the Prince of Wales. Which for him and him alone was a license to behave badly. And behave badly he did.”
Now I return you to Mr. Al’s take on King George IV:
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One such piece of bad judgment was the wife of Count Karl August von Hardenburg.
The Count had come to London with his wife in the hope of being appointed Hanorverian envoy to the Court of St. James. The Prince and the Countess’s first meeting, at a concert in the spring of 1781 produced no sparks. Said the Prince of her after this meeting; “A very devilish, agreeable, pleasant little woman. But devilish severe.”
He changed his tune after meeting her a second time at one of the Queen’s card parties. He took a second look at this severe woman and proclaimed her, “divinely pretty.” The Prince, like his father, was a very idiosyncratic speller. Now that he had gotten a good look at her, he decided that she was the one.
He wrote to his brother, Prince Frederick, in Hanover,”Oh did you but know how I adore her. How I love her, how I would sacrifice every earthly thing for her; by heavens I shall go distracted: My brain shall split.”
It might have aided in keeping the Prince’s brain together had he known that the Countess had made a play for Frederick after he arrived in Hanover to continue his military education.
Fred decided to say nothing about that. Why stomp on the Prince’s buzz. The Prince went into Full Courtship Mode. He wrote letters and notes, he sent emissaries, and he had convulsive fits that required medical attention and he lost weight and began spitting up blood. The Prince of Wales was In Love.
Eventually, the Countess gave in. What woman can resist a guy who spits up blood for her? Wrote the Prince to Frederick, “Oh my beloved brother, I enjoy the pleasures of Elyssium. Thus did our connection go forward in the most delightful manner that you can form any idea to yourself of.”
His heart may have been in Elyssium, but the rest of him was in London. He needed to be discrete. No sense in starting another row with his parents. The Prince was the soul of discretion. So discreet, in fact, that a gossip piece appeared in the Morning Herald reporting that the Prince of Wales carriage could be seen parked outside the home of a certain German Countess nearly every day.
This was just the sort of thing Dad had been after him about. What the hell was wrong with that boy? Of course, the Count read the same piece. He was fit to be tied. His honor had been besmirched. Something had to be done. He had been cuckolded by a…a kid! The Better Sorts had a great laugh about it behind closed doors. That Prince! What a clown! Whatever will he do next?
The whole thing left the Prince more than a little confused. For once, he HAD been discreet. The reporter got it wrong. The carriage actually belonged to the lads uncle, Duke of Glouchester.
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What can I say, except thank you Mr. Al.
Alice
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