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graciously recvd. by the Queen & very kindly by the Princesses. Heavens how dul…’
    When that letter was written, at the beginning of June 1811, the atmosphere in Windsor Castle was more likely to have been bitter than dull. The King’s latest bout of insanity had lasted so long that no one now expected him to recover. In January the government had brought in the Regency Bill. On 6 February, while Charlotte rode up and down in the garden, peering through the windows of Carlton House to see what was going on, the Prince of Wales had been formally sworn in as Prince Regent. Charlotte’s father was now nominal head of state, and her grandmother and most of her aunts and uncles were more inclined to feel gloomy than glad about it.
    Typically, the Prince Regent decided to celebrate his appointment with an extravagant fête at Carlton House. His excuse was to entertain the exiled pretender to the throne of France, Louis-Philippe, who had actually been living in Twickenham for the last ten years. But the real reason was to mark the opening of what he hoped would be his own splendid reign.
    When she heard about it, Charlotte felt sure that she would be invited, that her first ball would be this memorable event. But there was never any chance of that. As Lady Rose Weigall put it:
    The Regent had reason to fear that her appearance in public would give a fresh stimulus to the widespread feeling in favour of herself and her mother and render him proportionately more unpopular. He was further bent upon avoiding everything which could look like a recognition of her as the heir presumptive to the Crown, probably hoping that by the death of his wife or by a divorce he might hereafter have a son through a second marriage and shut out thedaughter of his deserted consort from the throne… For these reasons the Princess Charlotte was regarded as a rival to be suppressed rather than as a future sovereign.
    And that was why Charlotte was writing to Mercer from Windsor. Her father wanted her out of the way.
    A few days earlier, when she still half-hoped for an invitation, Charlotte had written to one of her former sub-governesses, Miss Hayman, who was now on her mother’s staff in Blackheath, telling her about the great event and describing an evening with her mother, who was now spending more and more of her time in her apartments in Kensington Palace.
    My Dear Hamy, But a few lines, as I will write you a longer one soon again, only to tell you that the Prince Regent gives a magnificent ball on the 5th of June. I have not been invited, nor do I know if I shall be or not. If I should not, it will make a great noise in the world, as the friends I have seen have repeated over and over again it is my duty to go there; it is proper that I should. Really I do think it will be very hard if I am not asked. The Duke of Gloucester dined on the 16th at Kensington Palace, and was as usual delightful; he was very kind to me and talked a great part of the evening to me on the sofa alone; his charming sister was also there, who was as kind to me as possible. In short, there is hardly a moment of my life that I passed so happily as I did the other night. The 17th the Princess was perfectly out of humour and quite snappish; what had happened God only knows.
    At this stage in her life Charlotte was clearly much more aware of her political position as a Princess than she was of her feminine charm or even her eligibility. The reason why the Duke of Gloucester had been ‘delightful’ on so many occasions was quite simply because he was attracted to her.
    Her father was already aware of it, and was not pleased. His cousin the Duke was entirely unsuitable for Charlotte. Apart from anything else he was more than twenty years older than she was, and had also been paying court for years to the Regent’s sister Princess Mary.
    The charms that delighted the Duke of Gloucester did not, however, have much chance to delight any other gentleman during the early summer.