Sofy was pulled this way and that. Tommy pestered her for money and John Conroy did his best to protect her from Tommy’s supplications but he did it out of self-interest. He had found a house in Campden Hill and Sofy had promised to pay for it.
I said, ‘They both take advantage of you.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I do it gladly. What do I need money for?
Better that it’s put to use by those who need it.’
There was soon another burden on her too. Fred York was dying. His dropsy was no longer eased by tapping and he knew he couldn’t survive much longer. He asked Sofy if she would execute certain delicate aspects of his will, to pay legacies and to fend off possible false claims.
The New Year came in and the Duke of York went out. He’d come to town to die and Sofy was at his side at Rutland House when the end came.
‘Poor dear,’ she said, ‘he so hoped the King would visit him, to be assured no ill-feeling remained between them, for you know there was always a little rivalry there. When the old King was alive Fred was always his favourite.’
His Majesty had failed to visit his brother, pleading a head cold, but York was nearly the death of him anyway. The funeral was at Windsor on the coldest night of the year and they all caught such chills—Sussex, Clarence, Gloucester, and the King himself—we thought we’d be burying the lot of them. Sofy huddled by her Kensington hearth, with John Conroy at her side, and picked at the tangle of her brother’s legatees. He acknowledged a Mr Frederick Vandiest and a Mrs Louisa Crockatt as his natural children; also Captain John Gibbes of Fulham Lodge, and a son, John Molloy, by Countess Tyrconnel. A third John, by housemaid Emma Stilwell, had fallen at Waterloo and died without issue. There were bequests too for two particular friends: Mrs Clarke, now residing in Boulogne, and Mrs Sinclair Sutherland of Portman Street.
Sofy said, ‘Disbanding Fred’s troops has quite exhausted me. I pray Billy Clarence won’t ask me to do the same for him. I dread to think how many there would be, leaving aside all those Fitzclarences. He probably had a family in every port. Well let him ask Augusta to do it.’
34
The case of Astley versus Garth was heard in the Court of Common Pleas in February 1827. Sir Jacob’s counsel painted him as the most devoted of husbands in the happiest of marriages. Tommy’s counsel posed the question, why would a wife leave such domestic felicity? Then swiftly answered it themselves by bringing into court a number of doxies willing to testify that they had entertained Sir Jacob.
My own dear Garth was very distressed by the proceedings.
He said, ‘I raised Tommy to be a gentleman, but it’s all too clear what he intends.’
What he meant was that the evidence Tommy’s lawyer had brought, that Jacob Astley was known to every drab in Leicestershire, might prevent his being allowed to divorce her and cast her off. And if Sir Jacob’s petition for divorce was dismissed it would be very convenient for Tommy for then he wouldn’t be obliged to marry Lady Astley.
Garth said, ‘He stole a jewel and paraded it about, and now he’s dulled its lustre I fear he’ll throw it back to its rightful owner. He’ll be the ruin of that poor woman.’
I said, ‘Then like father, like son.’
He pressed his lips together. It was his habit whenever I mentioned or even hinted at Ernie Cumberland’s name.
The judge seemed not to care one way or the other about Lady Georgiana’s fate. He instructed the jury that whilst Lady Astley had failed in her wifely duty to correct her husband’s weaknesses, and that a wife’s adultery was always more fatal to a marriage than the husband’s, Astley had nevertheless thrown away his entitlement to compensation through his own debauchery. Sir Jacob was awarded compensation of one shilling and sentenced to remain married to Georgiana till death did them part.
Georgiana applied to her husband for funds, for Tommy lived far beyond the means of a captain’s half pay and his allowance from Sofy was soon swallowed up. Sir Jacob granted her a very modest sum, but it was nothing like sufficient for them to live on and satisfy Tommy’s creditors. It was inevitable he would turn to Sofy again, and that he would let drop the faint suggestion of using the secret of his parentage to strike an advantageous bargain.
I said, ‘Tell him you won’t be intimidated. Tell him you’ll cut him off without a penny if he ever threatens you again.’
Wasted breath.
Sofy’s first thought, as with everything, was to put the matter entirely in John Conroy’s hands. Then Minny Gloucester intervened. She spoke to the King and the King said Sir Herbert Taylor was the man to deal with it. Sir Herbert had been Fred York’s adjutant, then the old King’s secretary and after that Queen Charlotte’s treasurer. There was no man more loyal to the Hanovers and I was relieved to think Sofy had him to protect her feelings and her bank deposits.
Garth knew Sir Herbert and was worried about the appointment.
He said, ‘Now Tommy has met his match. He had better go very carefully. Taylor may seem anodyne but he’s a clever man and he’ll use every trick he knows to protect Her Royal Highness.’
Poor Garth. His instinct was to protect any lady, even one who sometimes forgot the gratitude she owed him, but he loved Tommy too, like a true father. As for Ernie Cumberland, he was everywhere and nowhere in all this, living untroubled—or so I believed—in Hanover, and a picture of married contentment.
That summer, while Sir Herbert calculated and Tommy ran up still more debts, Sofy had a distraction. Royal came to visit, hoping to find a cure for her dropsy. It was the first time she had returned to England since her marriage. Augusta had visited her in Württemberg and so had Elizabeth, but Minny and Sofy had not seen her in thirty years. Augusta went to Greenwich to meet her and took her first to St James’s to see the King and then on to Frogmore, which is where I saw her when I accompanied Sofy to Windsor.
Royal, Dowager Queen of Württemburg, was enormous: a vast bombazine-wrapped egg of a woman, without a neck or waist or ankles. She couldn’t walk and could only sit if her back was well supported. That she had made the journey at all was a miracle. And what changes she must have observed. The old Queen’s House, now renamed Buckingham Palace, doubled in size and left in a mess of stone and timber while the next stage of its renovations was agreed. Upper Lodge demolished, our new King bloated and tearful, Augusta gouty and walking with a cane, and Sofy, bent and half-blind.
But Royal held court, pink and smiling, doling out gifts and talking endlessly of the rising generation of Württemburgs. There were a great number of Fritz’s grandchildren for her to run through.
Sofy said, ‘Why does she go on so about them? Why should we care? I’m sure I was in complete muddle with all their names.’
Tedious as it had been to hear about someone else’s faraway relatives, I believe it was something else that had put Sofy out of sorts: Royal’s talk of nearer relatives, Dolly Cambridge’s children whom she saw quite often and—more particularly—the Cumberlands’ son, George.
‘Such a darling,’ Royal said. ‘Ernie is besotted with him. But he has that same weakness in his eyes that Ernie had. I do pray something can be done for him.’
I watched Sofy as Royal talked of the Cumberlands. She showed nothing of what she must surely have felt, hearing of Ernie’s happy circumstances, of his devoted duchess and his angelic son. What had happened between them had cost Sofy everything and Ernie nothing. I noticed a difference too in the way Royal condescended to Augusta and Sofy. She had had a husband and a throne while they remained spinsters. Towards Minny, who had married, she was far more respectful.
At the beginning of October Royal began her slow homeward journey. Augusta and Sussex saw her off. The King, who had promised to say goodbye, stayed away at the last minute, indisposed again.
Sofy said, ‘Gusta is in such a fury. She says her gout is every bit as bad as his, he just makes heavier weather of it. And you know, I quite agree with her. He should have said farewell to Royal. After all, none of us shall ever see her again.’
I said, ‘That’s a sad thought.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘She’s grown insufferably smug. If I had heard another word on the glories of Ludwigsburg I should have screamed.’
As the days shortened Garth and I left off our walks in the park and stayed by his fireside. He seemed aged suddenly. What self-discipline and a sober life had kept at bay had been undone by Tommy’s reckless goings-on. Creditors left unsatisfied, Sofy’s name mentioned in caricatures, and Georgiana Astley consigned to limbo, for her husband had been refused the divorce he’d sought and her lover couldn’t afford to keep her.
Sir Herbert Taylor had prepared an offer. Tommy might have twelve hundred pounds a year, for life, if he signed a pledge never again to apply to Sofy for funds, never to communicate with her and never to speak to others of their connection.
‘Too harsh,’ Sofy said. ‘A boy can’t be asked to cut himself off from his mother or starve.’
But John Conroy’s advice prevailed and for once I agreed with him. Tommy was no poor, motherless boy. He was a grown man who would stop at nothing to have his own way. ‘Besides,’ I said to Sofy, ‘when does he ever visit you, except when his pockets are empty?’
