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was ordered in that respect. But in the meantime she was a woman grieving for her husband and he knew what it meant to lose a spouse.
    ‘Do not cry, my dear,’ he said. ‘Try not to grieve. I know how you suffer. I lost my own vife. Your mother-in-law… the best voman in the vorld. Ven I lose her I lose heart…’
    Augusta thought: Yes, you old hypocrite, and all the time you were mourning for her you were thinking of how you could bring Madame Walmoden to England, and all the time you were pretending to be so fond of her you were deceivingher with other women. As Fred was… but Fred was kinder… and Fred was dead.
    The King patted her knee comfortingly, and beckoned to his grandsons.
    ‘Come here, young fellows. Be brave boys now. Obey your mother and remember you are the grandsons of a King.’
    Augusta said quickly: ‘Your Majesty will, I know, out of your goodness of heart not take my children from me. I have lost my husband… to lose my children would be unendurable.’
    She was on the verge of tears and the King’s eyes were swimming too. Augusta was alert in spite of her grief. Now was the time to get this important matter settled, she was well aware, while he was in a sentimental mood. Once he had gone away and remembered that, Fred was a villain whom he had hated, that she had always been her husband’s ardent supporter, he would set some plan in motion to take her children from her. Now was the moment then, while he was in a sentimental mood and could not in all decency deny such a request to a grieving widow.
    ‘Your Majesty, who understands my loss as few others can, will grant me this. Your Majesty, you will leave me guardian of my children. It is the only thing which can console me now.’
    The King nodded.
    ‘So it shall be,’ he said.
    Augusta sighed with relief and was aware of triumph. Fred was dead, no longer there to overshadow her. Now was the time for the true Augusta to emerge.
    *
    Augusta sent for her eldest son. She was seated at her table and there were papers before her; when she saw George she rose and held out her arms.
    He ran into them and she embraced him crying: ‘My poor fatherless boy.’
    George wept with her and as he did so thought of his father lying dead in his coffin and the pain he must have suffered before his death. He wept bitterly for the loss of that kind man and the fact that his passing had made him Prince of Wales. There was a difference in being Prince of Wales and the son of the Prince of Wales. He had sensed it immediately. He wasexpecting a summons hourly to appear before his terrifying grandfather.
    Augusta dried her tears. She had lost dear Fred, but there were compensations. There was power and there was Lord Bute.
    ‘Your dear kind Papa left a paper which he would have given to you on your eighteenth birthday had he lived. But now that he has… gone… he would wish you to have it at once, for, my son, you will have to grow up quickly. You will have to learn to be a King. You understand full well what your father’s death means to you… what changes it has brought in your position.’
    ‘Yes, Mamma,’ said George mournfully.
    ‘Then we will read this paper together, shall we? We will see what instructions dear kind Papa has left you.’
    ‘Yes, Mamma.’
    She opened the papers and spread them on the table, and together they read:
    ‘Instructions for my son George drawn up by myself for his good, that of my family and for that of his people, according to the ideas of my grandfather and best friend, George I.’
    Augusta looked at her son significantly. ‘You see, he did not trust his father, our present King, your grandfather. Ah, his grandfather was always a good friend to him. How different it would have been if he had been his father…’
    ‘It was a pity they had to quarrel,’ George said.
    ‘Anyone would quarrel with the King,’ replied Augusta fiercely. ‘We shall have to be very careful to avoid trouble now we no longer have your