By George! What is a Prince to Do?

When we left off last week, Lady Jersey had received the cut direct in a way even she could not ignore. What did Prince George think of it?

If the Prince believed this whole fuss would eventually go away if he kept his head down, he like Lady Jersey, was in for a nasty shock. The Prince’s behavior was beginning to draw public criticism onto the whole family. Princes and princesses, the King and Queen, were all taking heat for allowing the Prince to treat Caroline so badly. Now that the Prince’s chickens were coming home to roost on THEIR doorsteps they were no longer so willing to look the other way regarding his bad habits.

Some of them were not going to remain silent either. Wrote Princess Elizabeth to her brother; “We are one and all very miserable about you, and what we have suffered passes all power of expression…Friends and foes are all of the opinion that a reconciliation must take place for the sake of the country and the whole family, for if you fall all must fall, and then with your excellent heart how could you bear the distress and misery of your own family. I am sorry, very sorry to write these sever and cruel truths, but alas!…if you could see the agony of mind of our poor mother and the distress she is in I am sure you would not be able to stand it and would make a sacrifice for her sake.”
What is amazing is that, after all the Prince put mom and dad through up to this point, that any member of the family could write something like that.

As icing on the cake, the Prince discovered that his friends were also making appeals on Caroline’s behalf. Not so much because they cared for Caroline, but because any reconciliation would naturally involve getting rid of Lady Jersey for good and all.

Lord Hugh Seymore referred to her as “that bitch.” Jack Payne, the Princes private secretary, was fired because he refused to play nice with her. Everyone who hated Lady Jersey realized that the only way to get rid of her, short of tying a rock around her neck and throwing her into the Thames, was to champion Caroline and press for reconciliation.

The Prince found himself in hell. His family had turned on him, his friends, whom he expected more sympathy from than his family, were even worse. Why couldn’t they see what he could see plain as day, that his wife was conspiring with, well, with everyone in England to make him look bad? At least Lady Jersey said nice things about him. SHE knew the truth!

He pored out his heart in a letter to mom that must have caused her to question her boys sanity. It was full of “dearest, dearest, dearest mother.” His “most beloved mother” and his “ever best and dearest mother.” The Queens initial response to this was probably any moms response to a kid who lays it on so thick. “What does he want this time?” What he wanted was a favor. Would mummy dearest go to daddykins and get him, in his capacity as King of England, to denounce his wife. In public, of course. If the King wanted to slap her around on the steps of St. Paul’s that would be a nice touch. But His Majesty really, really needed to let the public know that he was behind his son one hundred and ten percent.

Wrote the Prince; “The King must be resolute and firm, or everything is at an end. Let him recall to his mind the want of firmness of Louis 16. This is the only opportunity for him to stemm (the Prince’s spelling) the torrent…I know you will fight for me till the last, and I for you, and by you till the last drop of blood, but if ever you flinch, which I am convinced is impossible, I shall then despair.”
It’s hard to tell if he was writing to the Queen about his wife or an invasion from France.

It’s very doubtful that the Queen shared this communication with her husband. The King did write to his boy on the subject. He sent the Prince a letter to inform him that his position hadn’t changed. Caroline had her faults, but it was nothing a firm and loving husband couldn’t handle. More to the point, the King had what he considered to be a solution to at least one of the Prince’s marital woes. A solution, moreover, that might go a long way toward fixing everything.