Читать книгу Mistress Masquerade - Juliet Landon - Страница 5

The Regency, a period between the years 1811 and 1820, was dominated by George, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He was a man of many facets, both attractive and ugly.

In 1811 George was required to take over his father’s duties because of a severe illness showing similar symptoms to insanity, projecting the young man into a situation he was unable to manage to anyone’s satisfaction—not even his own. This was not all his fault, but he was not a strong leader in any sense, preferring lavish displays of wealth and waste that drained the coffers dry at a time when funds were needed for the wars against Napoleon.

My depiction of him as an art-lover is fact, for he did indeed employ knowledgeable friends like Lord Hertford to act as buyer for his ‘newest toys’, Carlton House and Brighton Pavilion, on which he poured vast sums of money while at the other end of society thousands lived in terrible poverty after a series of bad harvests and severe winters.

In an otherwise intelligent and cultivated man, his insensitivity on a personal level was breathtaking, and it seemed to me, as a writer, that to include him in a story of this kind I must choose whether to concentrate on the sadness of his position or on his utterly reprehensible behaviour towards those he had once called his dearest friends. To allow Annemarie to rediscover her natural compassion I chose the former.

Emma Hamilton was one of those Regency characters whose colourful life needs no embellishment. Her story of ‘rags to riches’ both fascinates and repels us at the same time. It is an astonishing saga of how she exploited every attribute and talent she possessed to survive in a man’s world, becoming the mistress of several men in the process, including Lord Nelson. There is no evidence that she and the Prince Regent were actually lovers, but they were close friends—until Emma’s difficulties and demands became too much for him, when he failed to respond to her pleas for help.

Selfish to the last, George felt no responsibility to those he had once loved, though he kept thousands of love tokens, letters and mementoes. Again, one cannot help but find some sympathy for a woman like Emma Hamilton, so ill-used by her family and all those she had helped, who had taken full advantage of her generosity. Her ambition, apparent greed and amoral behaviour sometimes appear at odds with her naivety, innocence and longing for approval while expecting the same kindness from those she loved. I truly believe she could not tell her friends from her enemies most of the time. And that, sadly, was one of the greatest tragedies in her life, for she lived in the heart of a political and greed-ridden society whose loyalties dissolved faster than hers. Combine those expectations with a man like the Prince Regent and there is a recipe bound to collapse—like his protestations of eternal love.

Two such complex characters, so much to like and admire, so much to despise; their true stories are indeed stranger than fiction.

My main sources of information were The Prince of Pleasure by JB Priestley, which is now out of print, but there is plenty about George to be found in Ian Kelly’s brilliant book Beau Brummell, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2006.

Kate Williams’s book, England’s Mistress, is all about Emma Hamilton and is excellent reading, published by Arrow in 2007.