Charlotte & Leopold (14 page)

The Prince said nothing. Emboldened by her own impatient impudence, Mercer went on, ‘The last time Princess Charlotte talked to me about it, she said that so far from repenting the step she had taken, she would rather continue to suffer all the restraint and privations she had these last six months than marry the Prince of Orange.’

The Prince did not seem to be convinced, or else he did not want to be. Mercer left the meeting frustrated. No matter what anyone thought or said, the Regent was clearly determined to have his own way.

Having heard from several aunts as well as Mercer that the ‘Orange match’ was on again, Charlotte wrote to her father. It was a humble and respectful letter, but it was firm. Although she accepted that she could not marry ‘as the rest of the world do’, she was not prepared to do so without ‘esteem and regard’. As a result, a marriage with the Hereditary Prince of Orange was out of the question.

Her father wrote back. Charlotte, he said, was only refusing the Prince of Orange because she had been exposed to ‘the council and advice of mischievous, false and wicked persons’. She could not afford to say no. Once her letters to Captain Hesse were exposed, she would not be in a position to marry anyone.

Charlotte sent a copy of this letter to Mercer. On 26 February, after she had received Mercer’s answer, she wrote again, ‘I remain
firm & unshaken, & no arguments, no threats shall ever bend
me to marry this detested Duchman. You are quite right in your letter of today that
my
letter had
not convinced
. I begin almost to despair of
what
will.’

On the same day, up at the castle, Charlotte read her father’s letter to the Queen. The Queen, unusually for her, burst into tears. The Queen wrote to her eldest son. Several of his brothers and sisters wrote to him as well. The Prince Regent was at bay in Brighton.

And then came the news that brought all negotiations in Brighton, Windsor, London, Vienna and anywhere else in Europe to a standstill. On 1 March Napoleon had escaped from the island of Elba. He had landed in France. His old army was rallying round him.

The Congress of Vienna broke up. The nations of Northern Europe made ready to go back to war.

Amid the anxiety on every other front, the emergency brought one relief to Charlotte. Captain Hesse came home to rejoin his regiment. Mercer and her father found and confronted him. He convinced them that all letters had been burned. The trunk that contained them was empty. With but two exceptions, every present that he had ever received from Charlotte was returned to Mercer. One exception was a turquoise ring, which he first said was still in his baggage and then said had been lost when he was wearing it round his plume in battle. The other was the watch. But Charlotte did not think that either of these was significant enough to be incriminating. The matter was at an end. The little hussar was no longer a threat.

On 14 May Mercer received a letter from Leopold. It was the answer to the one she had sent him much earlier, but it had taken a long time to reach her. It had been written in Vienna on 28 April. Leopold had little hope of going back to England now. He was about to rejoin the Russian army and take up his old command. But if Mercer could assure him that he would be welcome to the Princess, he would do all that he could to come.

Mercer wrote back. She did not dare to give him that assurance. Making suggestions was as much as she could risk. If she was caught negotiating a royal marriage, she would never be allowed to see Charlotte again.

But on 2 June, before her letter reached him, Leopold wrote another to Mercer. After thinking about it, he had decided not to risk coming to England uninvited. If he did, he might offend the Regent, and without the Regent’s goodwill, his dream could never be fulfilled.

But by then Leopold would not have been able to come to England anyway. Napoleon had assembled 125,000 men in northern France. Further north, along the border, the allies were waiting. In another two weeks they would be fully prepared for a combined invasion. Meanwhile, if Napoleon struck first, they were almost ready to receive him. The Austrians were to the east of Strasbourg, in a long line between Basle and Worms. The Russians were in the centre, north-west of Frankfort. The Prussians were south-west of them, below Namur and Liege. The British, Dutch, Hanoverians and Brunswickers were to the west between Brussels and the sea.

And most of the men who had played leading parts in Charlotte’s short life were with them. Leopold was with the Russians in the centre; August was with Blücher’s Prussians; Charles Hesse, George FitzClarence, the Prince of Orange and the Duke of Brunswick were with Wellington beyond Brussels.

No matter what route Napoleon chose, at least one of them would be in harm’s way.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

Waterloo

L
ATE IN THE
afternoon of 20 June 1815 a rumour began to spread through the great London mansions of Mayfair and St James’s. Nathan Rothschild, the banker, had received a report through his many agents on the continent and had sent a messenger to the Prime Minister.

Some said he had then gone down to the Stock Exchange with an expression of deep melancholy on his face. Since everyone was sure that he would be the first to know if anything had happened to the army, the brokers feared the worst and started to sell. When prices fell, Rothschild stepped in and bought. But that, if it was true, was the only indication that the news was good.

Charlotte was by then living at Warwick House again – although not even with the same limited freedom that she had known before. The entrance had been blocked. The only way in or out of Warwick House now was through Carlton House and the courtyard that divided them.

When the rumour reached her, Charlotte asked for a message to be sent to the Colonial Office. It was addressed to Lord Bathurst,
the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and it asked him to send on any news to her as soon as it reached him, even if it came in the middle of the night – ‘the Princess being exceedingly anxious to receive tidings and particularly to know the fate of some of her friends.’

But throughout the night and for most of the next day there was no official news. All that anyone could add to the rumour was that Nathan Rothschild had apparently received a copy of a Dutch newspaper containing a vague report of an allied victory.

In the evening the Prince Regent went round from Carlton House to attend a ball at 16 St James’s Square. His hostess was Mrs Edmund Boehm, whose husband had made a vast fortune in the sugar trade, and the ball was the pinnacle of her ambitious social career. At last, her guests included not only the Regent but also his brother the Duke of York and her neighbour Lord Castlereagh.

The Regent led off the dancing. Before the first dance was over, however, a commotion in the square brought the music to a standstill and the dancers to the windows. There were cheering people running out of the side streets. An open carriage was clattering towards the house. By the light of the tapers that running footmen were carrying ahead of it, the dancers could see that it contained a young soldier dressed in the simple scarlet coatee of a staff officer. He was Major the Hon. Henry Percy, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. Percy leapt out of the carriage and ran into the house and up the stairs, carrying what looked like a short but broad roll of cloth under each arm.

He crossed the drawing room and knelt in front of the Regent panting. ‘Victory… Victory, Sire!’

As he spoke, he dropped two captured eagles – French regimental colours with golden eagles on the tips of their poles.

Then he took out a small purple velvet bag that had been given to him a week earlier by a young lady at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels. From this he drew out the Duke of Wellington’s despatch.

The Regent took the despatch and retired into another room with the Foreign Secretary. When he returned he was in tears, and for once his tears were justified.

Mrs Boehm’s muttering guests fell silent. Castlereagh read the despatch aloud. Four days ago, the allies had destroyed Napoleon’s army at Waterloo. But the cost had been terrible. There had not yet been time to make out a complete list of the officers who had been killed or wounded, but those listed in the despatch, together with those that Henry Percy could remember, were still so many that there was no one in the room who had not lost a kinsman or a friend.

The Prince Regent returned at once to Carlton House, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary. All the guests went home after them, hurrying to bring the grim but glorious news to their families. Mr and Mrs Boehm were left alone with the musicians, extra servants and a huge uneaten supper.

At Warwick House, the news was, for the most part, a relief. Napoleon had decided to strike at the right flank and try to take on the allies one at a time. So the Russians were too far away to be engaged – Leopold was safe. Wellington and Blücher were the only commanders who had been able to combine, and theirs were the armies that had suffered the casualties. Among these, Charlotte learned, both Charles Hesse and the Hereditary Prince of Orange had been wounded, although neither so severely that his life was in danger. But there was also a loss, and it was a loss that brought back the gloom that Warwick House had not seen since the death of Mrs Gagarin.

Two days before the battle of Waterloo, in an attempt to halt the French advance, the Duke of Brunswick had been killed leading his black cavalry in a charge at Quatre Bras. The little duchy had lost another duke to Napoleon.

The Prince Regent had forbidden Charlotte to communicate with her mother, but, in the circumstances, he allowed one letter.
Charlotte never received a reply. Several weeks later, however, she received a letter of condolence from Lady Charlotte Campbell, who was still a member of her mother’s entourage. Lady Charlotte kept the answer.

Grief did not, however, distract Charlotte from what was now her only important objective. By the time she wrote that letter, she had written to the Prime Minister asking him to represent her formally with her father and request him to offer her hand in marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. If he did not agree, she warned, she would remain a spinster and refuse all other suitors.

This time the Prince Regent’s excuse was ‘the state of the Continent and the negotiations’ that followed the exile of Napoleon to St Helena. This, he said, was not the moment to consider such a proposal. In his report to Charlotte, Lord Liverpool told her that for the time being he felt there was no more he could do; the matter would have to be ‘postponed for his Royal Highness’s further consideration’.

When the Duke of York heard what had happened he agreed with the Prime Minister and advised Charlotte to be patient. He was in touch with Leopold and knew that he was about to join the
allied army in Paris. Duty might well prevent him from coming to England for a few months anyway, and meanwhile Charlotte was about to be sent away for another seaside exile in Weymouth. The Duke’s advice was to wait until November, when Parliament would be sitting again, and then ‘make another push’.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

Waiting in Weymouth

A
T FIRST
C
H
ARLOTTE
found it easy enough to follow the advice to be patient with her father. But it was not so easy to be patient with Leopold. As soon as she reached Weymouth, she wrote to Mercer telling her that ‘the Leo’ was in Paris, and begging her to write to him, although she added, ‘Preach up prudence. A false step now I feel would ruin all.’

In the weeks and then months that followed, Mercer wrote encouraging letters to Leopold, Leopold wrote back to Mercer, Mercer passed on what he had said to Charlotte, and in her answers Charlotte became more and more eager and less and less inclined to go on waiting.

On 21 August, late at night, she wrote:

Just over a week later, after Mercer had induced Leopold to share his feelings with her, Charlotte wrote, ‘I will tell you candidly that I am
delighted
, not to say
charmed & flattered
at what Leo writes about his sentiments and feelings for me, & the way in wh. he expresses himself is peculiarly pleasing.’

After another month she was beginning to hope that Leopold had decided to come over, and yet at the same time both she and Mercer were worried that someone was advising him against it – it was possible that ‘hints might have reached him through the Prussians’ about Prince August, or that somebody had told him about Charles Hesse. If he did come, Charlotte wanted Mercer to meet him and explain.

A week later, still hoping that Leopold was coming soon, Charlotte was in a mood to be devious. She told Mercer, ‘I give you
carte blanche
if you see him, to say & do all that circumstances will allow & require. Don’t send me any of his letters, let me see them when we meet, that you may
honorably
be able to keep to saying you
never
forwarded any letters to me
.’

Yet amid all the frustration and disappointment, the news that raised Charlotte’s hopes the highest was not about Leopold but about
‘Slender Billy’. It was announced in Holland that the Hereditary Prince of Orange was engaged to marry the Tsar’s younger sister, the Grand Duchess Anne.

The Dutch fleet was to be united with the Russian fleet. For those who were inclined to suspect a conspiracy, and who did not know how much Charlotte detested the young Prince of Orange, it looked as though the scheming Grand Duchess Catherine had brought about the breach between them as part of a long-term Russian plan. But for Charlotte the news was nothing more than a merciful release. Her father no longer had a pet plan to promote above any other.

But then she heard that several other eligible princes had been seen in London and at Windsor. On 14 October she wrote, ‘I have such a dread of all foreign Princes, the sight as well as the name of them alarm me from the idea of some intrigue or other going on for my marrying someone of them.’

By then it was a while since Mercer had heard from Leopold, and a week later Charlotte began to despair. ‘His silence to you is now what
surprises & occupies
me the
most
for you
ought
to have heard long before this.’

November came. It was the month when Parliament was sitting again, the month in which the Duke of York advised Charlotte to make ‘another push’. But Mercer heard nothing from Leopold, and while Charlotte waited in Weymouth she underwent what she described as an alarming adventure.

On Friday, 10 November, between four and five o’clock in the evening, the Princess was looking out of her dressing room window when she saw a young gentleman with his right arm in a leather sling walking on the esplanade. He looked exactly like Charles Hesse. Charlotte took out her telescope and had another look at him as he walked back. It
was
Charles Hesse.

As Charlotte told Mercer, ‘What to do was the next question.’ Was he there because he knew Charlotte was there? What would
happen if the Prince Regent found out he had been there, even if he and Charlotte never met?

Charlotte went to General Garth and told him all that he needed to know. The old General went out, found the young Captain and sat down with him on a bench. Garth asked why Hesse was in Weymouth. The answer was that, while still recovering from his wound, Hesse was on his way to stay with friends in Cornwall. He had stopped off for the night in Weymouth because he had never seen it before. Garth then asked him if he knew that Princess Charlotte was staying in Weymouth. Hesse said that he did not. Garth believed him. In that case, said the General, it was the Captain’s duty to leave town at once. Hesse agreed. He was due to leave next day at noon, but if that was not enough he would try to find a way of leaving earlier. Garth said that it was enough.

Next day Charlotte watched as Charles Hesse walked past Gloucester Lodge to join the Exeter coach. That evening, to guard against any future accusation of subterfuge, she wrote to the Duke of York and told him what had happened.

Soon afterwards, Hesse left England and rejoined the entourage of Charlotte’s mother. After her death, he lived in Italy, where he had several eminent lovers, including the Queen of Naples, whose husband eventually had him escorted out of the kingdom by carabinieri. He also fought a number of duels, in the last of which he was killed by another bastard, Count Leon, whose father was Napoleon.

The Duke of York wrote back to Charlotte. ‘I can easily conceive how unexpected and unpleasant Mr H.’s appearance at Weymouth must have been to you, and think that in the very awkward situation in which it placed you, you acted quite right in sacrificing your own feelings, however disagreeable it must have been to you in confessing to General Garth the delicacy of your situation.’

Charlotte was pleased by her uncle’s approval, but while Leopold’s silence continued, the Duke’s next letter brought even greater
comfort. ‘You may be assured, dearest Charlotte, that tho’ absent you are not forgot, and that your real friends are doing everything in their power to serve you and further your wishes, and I cannot but be confident that the patience and acquiescence which you have shown in all the arrangements which have been made for you, will have a proper effect.’

‘I think, that he does know something he don’t like to say’, wrote Charlotte hopefully to Mercer. But as December came and went there was still no sign of it, and Charlotte’s continuing anxiety can only have been made more poignant by the news that Mercer was in love.

The man who had won Mercer’s heart, and who had lost his own heart to her, was Auguste Charles Joseph, Count de Flahault de la Billarderie. He had served in the French army in both Spain and Russia, where he had been appointed an aide-de-camp to Napoleon, and he had rejoined the Emperor when he returned from Elba and served with him again at Waterloo. Like many of Napoleon’s closest supporters, he had left France as soon as the allies restored the Bourbon King Louis-Philippe to the throne. Since he had been educated in Scotland and spoke English fluently, he had gone to live in Edinburgh; it was there that he met his beautiful Scots heiress.

The thirty-year-old Count de Flahault was everything that Mercer was looking for: handsome, worldly, cultured and charming. It was widely believed that his father was Prince Talleyrand, who was having an affair with his mother before he was born; and in qualities and abilities he was certainly much closer to the great statesman than the provincial count whose title he inherited. He was so confident and clever that, despite his recent setback, he was clearly destined for further success. And as if these gifts were not enough, Mercer’s father added to his dangerous attraction by disapproving of him because he was a Bonapartist. So while Mercer was being courted by her Count, Charlotte went on languishing in Weymouth. She spent Christmas Day there without a single member of her family for company, and
it was not until New Year’s Day that she and her ladies climbed into their carriages to ride back to Windsor and Cranbourne Lodge.

On 6 January Charlotte drove down to Brighton with the Queen and two of her aunts. The next day was her twentieth birthday, and the Prince Regent was giving a party for her at his pavilion. In the course of the evening she made ‘another push’ on behalf of Prince Leopold, and this time her father made no objection.

Knowing that the Regent could remember things as he wanted them to be rather than as they were, Charlotte wrote to him as soon as she returned to Cranbourne Lodge, repeating on paper exactly what had been said in Brighton. Her excuse was that her shyness often prevented her from expressing herself clearly, and ‘in the present instance’ she therefore felt that it was essential ‘to have recourse to writing’. After reminding her father that he had once told her he would leave the choice to her, she went on. ‘Thus encouraged I no longer hesitate in declaring my partiality for the Prince of Coburg – assuring you that no one will be more steady or consistent in their present & last engagement than myself.’

But there was no need to worry. The Duke of York had indeed known something. At the end of the previous year the Regent had been making enquiries. He consulted Lord Castlereagh, who had been impressed by Leopold at the Vienna Congress, and Lord Lauderdale, who had got to know him better than anyone else when he was last in England. Both agreed that he was a man of the highest principles and an ideal husband for their future queen, and furthermore Lauderdale could confirm that he was ‘partial to the young lady’.

The answer to Charlotte’s letter was the news that her father had written to Leopold summoning him to England, and that his letter was accompanied by a letter from Castlereagh explaining to Leopold that the Regent intended to offer him his daughter’s hand in marriage.

All that was needed now was for the courier to find Leopold. He
was no longer in Paris, but he had not, as some said, gone to Russia. When the courier reached Coburg he was told that Leopold had gone to Berlin, and it was there that he found him, in the middle of February.

By then Charlotte was exasperated with waiting. On 21 February she wrote to Mercer. ‘By accurate calculation &
measurement
of the
distance
between Berlin & Coburg I find
no reason
(except the bad roads) for his not being here now.’

Charlotte’s calculation was correct. The day on which she wrote that letter was also the day on which Leopold landed at Dover and drove to London. This time there was no need to take rooms above a grocer’s shop in Marylebone High Street. This time the Prince Regent was paying. Leopold checked in at the Clarendon Hotel in Bond Street, where a suite had been reserved for him.