Yet she was recognized for a clever woman. Prime Minister Walpole was more respectful now, although she knew he had once referred to her as ‘That fat beast, the Prince’s wife’; but he was aware that the day would come when he would wish to be in the good books of Queen Caroline, ‘and she herself knew that when that day came she would need his services. They understood each other. He had disappointed her at that time when he had patched up the quarrel between George Augustus and herself on one side and the King on the other, because although he had promised that he would see that the King gave over the guardianship of her elder children to her, he had not done this. Still, she understood he was the shrewdest man in England and he was one whom she would want as her chief minister.

The thread fell from her hands and she dozed.

She awoke startled.

‘Henrietta! Charlotte!’

‘Your Highness ...’

‘Vot is this?’ In spite of all the time she had been in England she still spoke with a German accent and was apt to express herself quaintly. ‘Vot is this clatter?’

‘Someone has arrived, Your Highness,’ said Henrietta. The Princess yawned.

‘It is better to be dressed now,’ she said. ‘I will not then keep the Prince vaiting yen he comes. Go to the vindow and see who is coming.’

Henrietta moved to the window. She walked with grace though she was not exactly a beautiful woman; her fine but abundant hair was her greatest beauty; but she was ageing, thought the Princess, and lately she had become so deaf that she could seem almost stupid—which was far from the truth. Caroline was sure that the Prince only performed his precision lovemaking as a habit.

‘It is Sir Robert Walpole, Your Highness,’ said Henrietta.

‘Vot can bring him here at this hour,’ wondered Caroline. ‘Come, it is yell I am dressed.’

Sir Robert Walpole had been working in the study of his Chelsea house when the messenger arrived. He knew whence he came and that he could only bring news of the utmost importance.

The King was in Hanover and Walpole’s brother-in-law, Lord Townshend, was in attendance there; it was from Townshend that the messenger came.

Walpole lifted his unwieldy body from the chair and went to meet the messenger. Prepared as he was for important news he could not suppress an exclamation of dismay as he read that King George I had died of a seizure on his way to Osnabrück.

He steadied himself, summoned a servant, gave orders that the messenger should be provided with refreshment, but first his coach must be made ready for a journey and brought to his door, and called to his valet that he might be suitably and immediately dressed for a solemn occasion.

As his orders were obeyed he was saying to himself: This could well be the end. But even at the same time he was telling himself that he would not allow it to be. Walpole was not so easily defeated.,

So, he mused, the little fellow is now the King. George the First is dead. Long live George the Second.

He must be the first to say so. That was the immediate necessity. Townshend would know that well enough and not have sent the news to anyone else.

By the time he was ready to leave the house his carriage was waiting to take him from Chelsea to Richmond.

‘It has to be quick,’ he told the coachman. ‘Not a minute to be lost.’

The coachman understood.

‘Change horses half way,’ ordered Walpole, ‘but make them work.’

He sat back against the upholstery and pictured the scene at Richmond. It was what many had been waiting for, but no one had suspected it would come just yet. The old King, although he had suffered a couple of seizures, had seemed as if he were going on for a very long time. Walpole wished he had; they had been on good terms.

And not dissimilar in character, mused Walpole. Both gross in habit, crude in speech, and lacking in culture. Walpole laughed aloud, and his laughter reminded him that there was one difference: he was a merry man; the late King had been a dour one.

How, he asked himself, am I going to ingratiate myself with the little fellow? I should have begun to woo him earlier, of course. But his father wouldn’t pay his debts and it is the Princess who is important. And the Princess? Well at least we understand each other. She’s a clever woman and I’ve always known it. Not like that fool, Townshend, paying attention to Henrietta Howard and ignoring the Princess ... beg her pardon, the Queen.

Queen Caroline! She would be the one to cultivate; for as long as she could convince the little man that he ruled her she would be able to do what she wanted with him. Together we will rule England, thought Walpole. And you, little man, will not prevent us ... providing of course that Madame Caroline will stand with me.

Would she? Ah, there was the point. He had called her a fat beast at one time, and she had heard of it. Politicians should guard their tongues, which was not always easy when a politician’s tongue was both his best friend and his worst enemy.

That reminded him—what he said to the new King would be of the utmost importance. His tongue was going to have to be very clever to extricate himself from this delicate situation.

He looked out of the window. He knew every inch of the road to Richmond, for recently he had acquired the Rangership of Richmond Park and had bought the Old Lodge. This he had made into his home . . . his real home where Maria Skerrett waited for him; and every weekend he spent there with her and their two-year-old daughter rejuvenated him. It was strange to him, this feeling he had for Maria. He had never been a sentimental man until he had met her; his marriage had been a failure from the beginning, although when he had married Catherine, daughter of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London, she had seemed an ideal choice, being both beautiful and wealthy. Long ago he had gone his own way, she had gone hers; she was extravagant in manners and money. Her lovers were numerous and rumour had it—and Walpole had never given himself the trouble of attempting to discover the truth of this—that the Prince of Wales himself had been among them.

Walpole had lived heartily, drinking, hunting the fox and women, seeking power; he had liked to boast of his exploits with women; his conversation at table was coarse in the extreme and his accounts were accompanied by the loud laughter which shook his unwieldy frame. But he never joked about Maria Skerrett; he never mentioned her; she had shown him a new way of life which never ceased to make him marvel.

Even now as the coach rattled along the rough roads and he was thinking of the interview with the new King which could be so momentous as to mean the end of his career as a politician of importance, he was consoling himself that if he should fail he would be content to live quietly with Maria and little Molly.

The coach had stopped. The horses would have to be changed; they were exhausted.

‘Then hurry,’ shouted Walpole.

He closed his eyes. No one must be there before him. That would never do. He saw himself arriving late and the Prince already transformed into a king. A minute before he had thought he would be happy living quietly at the Old Lodge or Houghton in Norfolk with Maria. No, he was a politician, an ambitious man, and could not throw aside his main reason for living and expect to find contentment. Maria provided the solace, the respite, the haven—the real flavour of life was power.

They were off again. And in due course they had arrived at Richmond.

He went to the Lodge and shouted to the guard that he wished to be conducted to the Prince without delay, but he did not wait to be conducted, and he made his way to the royal apartments.

The Duchess of Dorset who happened to be in waiting, hearing the commotion of his arrival, came to the door of the royal suite to remind him that the Prince was sleeping, the Princess resting, and that as it was only three o’clock the time had not yet arrived for waking them.