shadow of britain

Chapter 784 It is difficult for an upright official to deal with household affairs

"Screw it!"

Arthur repeated Flora's words, pondering the Royal Navy-style profanity.

But ultimately, he still found it hard to imagine that the king would say such things in public, especially since he was criticizing the king of another country.

He couldn't help but laugh and said, "Fleet Street must be thrilled. I reckon it won't be long before the news spreads like wildfire throughout London."

Flora rubbed her temples with her fingers, complaining, "How can you still laugh? The Duchess didn't sleep a wink last night, and this morning she summoned me, saying that His Majesty the King is a senile old man, lacking any of the dignity expected of a king, and even blamed Sir John Conroy and me for not stopping the conversation in Windsor yesterday. Sigh... doesn't she realize that even the Queen of Adelaide couldn't stop His Majesty the King, so what could I possibly do?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. He was about to speak when he suddenly heard a familiar female voice coming from afar.

He immediately made a shushing gesture, and Flora stopped talking and listened intently with him.

Judging from the direction the sound came from, it was probably coming from the veranda of the garden opposite the Rose Hall.

The voices of a man and a woman were alternating back and forth. At first, they tried to suppress their voices, but as they spoke, they made no attempt to hide them.

That was the Duchess of Kent and King Leopold I of Belgium, her brother, who were visiting Kensington Palace.

“I simply cannot believe that he would speak to me like that at a banquet!” Leopold’s words were quite restrained, but his almost trembling voice still revealed a hint of barely concealed anger: “This is not just a family quarrel, but also a disrespect to a friendly nation! I am indeed a relative of His Majesty the King, but I am also the King of Belgium!”

“I understand, of course I understand, Leo.” The Duchess of Kent replied almost immediately: “The way he is… Hmph, I’ve said it before, he’s been a naval officer his whole life, and his hasty coronation is just a joke of fate. Do you think he really knows anything about royal decorum? All he knows is how to yell and swear, just like he does with his subordinates in the Royal Navy.”

“He called me ‘your whole family’!” Leopold said through gritted teeth. “He married the daughter of the last prince of the Holy Roman Empire, yet he always acts like a dockworker! What king in the world would smash a wine glass at the feet of his own relative?!”

“He’s gone mad, perhaps because he knows he doesn’t have many years left to live, and he’s become increasingly insane over the years,” the Duchess of Kent said coldly. “If you had stayed in Windsor a few more days, you would have known that yesterday wasn’t even his most insane moment. Last year, he even called our family trip a prophecy of a coup. Leo, do you know? I was just taking Delina out to see the beautiful landscapes of Britain, and he acted as if he’d been stepped on.”

The Duchess of Kent assumed her brother would agree with her, but Leopold suddenly changed his tone and said angrily, "Sister! He is indeed crazy, but you have gone too far in some ways! I must admit that even though I was publicly humiliated by him yesterday, a considerable part of what he said was indeed handed to him by yourself."

As soon as Leopold finished speaking, the atmosphere fell silent.

Although they couldn't see what the two looked like, Arthur and Flora couldn't help but hold their breath.

Finally, the Duchess of Kent spoke. Her tone was relatively calm, but you could tell she was suppressing her anger: "Are you saying I shouldn't fight for my daughter's rightful place?"

“Of course not,” Leopold said, his voice softening but still firm. “But you can’t make a scene everywhere she goes. You can’t let Conroy dictate national affairs like a prime minister. Nor can you bypass the King and Queen, Parliament, and Whitehall in everything. You must understand that those are not places you can easily challenge. Or, at the very least, you can’t act on your own without consulting me beforehand.”

The Duchess of Kent remained silent for a moment, seemingly trying her best to restrain herself.

A gentle breeze blew through the garden, causing the curtains of the Rose Hall to flutter slightly.

“I understand.” Her voice finally broke through, but it was so low and hoarse that it was almost inaudible: “You mean… you also think I’m in the way, just like them, right?”

"Sister, that's not what I meant..."

“Then what do you mean?” She suddenly raised her voice, a tremor that had been building up for a long time. “You say I can’t do this, I can’t do that, then tell me, what else can I do? I have a daughter, a daughter without a father, without brothers, without anyone to support her. The King never truly acknowledges her position, her royal relatives are always trying to poison her, and the people in the palace only follow Adelaide’s lead. She said she wanted to renovate Buckingham Palace, and Parliament agreed without batting an eye. But what about me? I just wanted to renovate the kitchen at Kensington Palace, and Parliament had to review it for three months straight. They’ve never cared about my feelings here. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do! Leo?”

“Sister…” Leopold’s voice paused, as if he wanted to interrupt, but before he could speak, he was drowned out by the Duchess’s incessant sobbing.

“Of course you don’t understand!” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “You’re a man. You have a military rank, wealth, a crown, and the support of the Belgian people. You are the de facto monarch of Belgium, and you have the right to speak. And what about me? I have nothing! If I don’t pave the way for Delina, who will? If I don’t stand up for her, she will only be seen as a second Sofia, confined to some remote manor for the rest of her life, and regarded as a disgrace to the royal family!”

"Oh..." Arthur, who was eavesdropping from around the corner of the corridor, couldn't help but cover his face with his hand when he heard this. He muttered to himself, "Does the Duchess really have to reveal everything? She even mentioned the second Sophia... I thought they were close friends..."

Miss Flora Hastings gave him a slight glare and tugged at his sleeve, signaling him to be quiet.

They certainly knew what the second Sofia was, referring to Princess Sofia, William IV's younger sister and Victoria's aunt.

Portrait of Princess Sofia, painted by British artist Thomas Lawrence in 1824, is now housed in Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England.
Princess Sofia is a very unique figure in the British royal family. She rarely appears in public, almost never participates in various social events in London, and remains unmarried to this day.

Logically speaking, British princesses should be highly sought-after in the marriage market, but Princess Sofia has remained unmarried, and there must be a reason for that.

In fact, Princess Sofia herself had always hoped to get married. Like most girls of her time, she longed to have her own family and children, and she never lacked suitors.

Her father, George III, also doted on his daughters, and the old father promised them many times that when they reached the right age, he would personally take them to Hanover and help them find the most suitable husbands among the best young men in Germany.

Unfortunately, when Sofia was 11 years old, George III began to show signs of mental instability and never recovered.

For the British Parliament, the British government, and the British constitutional system, the madness of this most powerful monarch in modern British history was absolutely a good thing. But for Princess Sofia, her father's madness was the source of her unfortunate life.

After that, the princess's mother, Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, became their guardian.

She is also an obstacle on her daughter's road to marriage.

Under Queen Charlotte's strict supervision, the princesses lived a convent-like life, forbidden from associating with anyone outside the court. Therefore, aside from servants, guards, or attendants, they rarely had contact with men. Their greatest entertainment consisted of listening to their mothers read sermons or practicing embroidery.

The days were so monotonous and dull that Princess Sofia even confided in her diary: "I wish I were a kangaroo."

This continued until 1811, when their brother George IV became regent. Although George IV had a terrible reputation among the people, Fleet Street frequently denounced this extravagant regent.

However, George IV's love for his sisters was very genuine. As soon as he became regent, he increased the allowance for the princesses to be married from £10,000 to £13,000, and did his best to support his sisters in entering social circles, hoping to help them realize their wish to get married as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, his mother, Queen Charlotte, was furious with her son's behavior. She berated George IV severely, and George IV dared not challenge his mother. So he could only apologize while carefully mediating between the two sides and trying his best to help his sisters maintain some independence.

This "royal tunnel warfare" finally came to an end in 1818 with the death of Queen Charlotte.

But it was too late, because Princess Sofia was already 41 years old.

For European royalty, marriages that produce an heir are considered valuable. Furthermore, due to royal constraints, Princess Sofia could not marry a commoner or a nobleman. Therefore, at this point, she was already destined to remain unmarried.

Even so, she was finally free.

But why does Princess Sofia still rarely appear in social settings?

This involves a potential royal scandal.

Rumors have long circulated in London that Princess Sofia had an affair with her brother, the Duke of Cumberland, and that George IV had reportedly warned his sisters not to be alone in the same room with the Duke of Cumberland during his reign.

But this is ultimately just street gossip, and only the parties involved probably know whether it's true or false.

Compared to the royal family's claims, Arthur felt that another piece of information might be more credible.

That is—Princess Sofia has an illegitimate child.

It is said that this is the child of Princess Sofia and Major General Thomas Garth, who is thirty-three years her senior.

As for why Arthur thought the news was highly credible, it was because he had received the information from Elder.

Elder's message came from Charles Greville, the Privy Council's Permanent Secretary.

Although the Privy Council Permanent Secretary does not directly participate in any policy-making, and is mainly responsible for recording and conveying the King's orders, Privy Council agendas and resolutions, due to the special nature of his work, he maintains close contact with the permanent secretaries of various departments in Whitehall, the King's private secretary, the Lord Chamberlain, and other courtiers.

In other words, this guy often knows more than many cabinet ministers.

According to Elder, Charles Greville was the kind of person who was extremely vain, loved gossip, but also claimed to be an objective and sarcastic person.

If he hadn't been of noble birth, Mr. Greville's best destiny would have been as a tabloid reporter.

This gentleman began holding this position in 1821 when he was 27 years old, and served under three kings: George III, George IV, and William IV. Therefore, he was extremely knowledgeable about the royal secrets of this period.

When Elder inquired about Princess Sofia, a slightly tipsy Mr. Greville replied: “Women can fall in love with anything, and chance and emotional contingency are more important than any specific intellectual or physical merit. Princesses are isolated from the world and have few opportunities to interact with men. Therefore, it is not surprising that their emotions are so intense and ready to fall into the hands of the first person who can get close to them.”

Although Greville did not explicitly state who Princess Sofia had lost her virginity to, based on Elder's meticulous analysis and detailed research, he concluded that it must have been Major General Thomas Garth.

Because one of Aunt Elder's close friends had once served as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Sofia, and according to that English aunt, "Although he had a large purple spot on his face and was far from handsome, the princess's affection for him was so strong that it was obvious to anyone that she could not control herself in his presence."

Generally speaking, Arthur doesn't care much about royal gossip, but Princess Sofia is an exception, because this old aunt of Victoria now lives in Kensington Palace... and she has the same problem as the Duchess of Kent, which is to leave everything to John Conroy and treat him like a god.

Princess Sofia even used her own money to buy Conroy a manor-style luxury villa near Kensington Palace.

At first, Arthur couldn't understand where Conroy got such great power, not only controlling the Duchess of Kent, but also having Princess Sophia at his beck and call.

However, after Elder proved the rumors of Princess Sophia's illegitimate child to Arthur, Arthur quickly pieced together the truth of the matter after a brief investigation by the plainclothes police officers near Kensington Palace...

(End of this chapter)