The Madness of George III Read online

  It will be obvious from this Introduction how much I owe to Nicholas Hytner. I would also like to thank the National Theatre staff director, Edward Kemp, the cast and production team, Anne Davies, Mary-Kay Wilmers and, for assistance with medical matters, Jonathan Miller, Roy Porter and Michael Neve

  Alan Bennett, December 1991

  The Madness of George III was first performed at the Royal National Theatre, London, on 28 November 1991. The cast included:

  GEORGE III Nigel Hawthorne

  QUEEN CHARLOTTE Janet Dale

  PRINCE OF WALES Michael Fitzgerald

  DUKE OF YORK Mark Lockyer

  PITT Julian Wadham

  DUNDAS Patrick Pearson

  THURLOW James Villiers

  FOX David Henry

  SHERIDAN Iain Mitchell

  BURKE Peter Laird

  MRS ARMISTEAD/

  DR IDA MACALPINE Celestine Randall

  FITZROY Anthony Calf

  GREVILLE Daniel Flynn

  LADY PEMBROKE/

  MARGARET NICHOLSON Richenda Carey

  PAPANDIEK Matthew Lloyd Davies

  FORTNUM Brian Shelley

  BRAUN Paul Corrigan

  SIR GEORGE BAKER Harold Innocent

  DR RICHARD WARREN Jeremy Child

  SIR LUCAS PEPYS Cyril Shaps

  DR WILLIS Charles Kay

  SIR BOOTHBY SKRYMSHIR Mike Burnside

  RAMSDEN Paul Kynman

  SIR SELBY MARKHAM Alan Brown

  HOPPNER Nick Sampson

  Director Nicholas Hytner

  Designer Mark Thompson

  Lighting Paul Pyant

  Music Kevin Leeman

  Sound Scott Myers

  Costume Supervisor Irene Bohan

  In a slightly shortened version the play was revived in July 1993 for a second season, followed by an American tour. This abridged version omits two or three minor characters and the penultimate scene involving Dr Ida Macalpine. It is that version which is printed here.

  PART 1

  WINDSOR

  The curtain rises to Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, the stage bare except for a flight of stairs. This spans the breadth of the stage and at the head of it, their backs to the audience, stand four PAGES.

  There is a shout off-stage from the EQUERRIES:

  Sharp! Sharp! The King! The King!

  and the PAGES come rapidly backwards down the steps as the KING and court climb the steep ramp at the rear of the staircase, so coming gradually into view. The KING and QUEEN pause briefly at the top, then come down the steps at a brisk pace, the pace as always set by the KING. GEORGE III is accompanied by his wife QUEEN CHARLOTTE, his son and heir the PRINCE OF WALES and his younger son the DUKE OF YORK. Flanking them are members of the government, PITT, DUNDAS and the Lord Chancellor, THURLOW.

  As the KING reaches the foot of the stairs MARGARET NICHOLSON, a soberly dressed woman, comes forward with a petition and kneels to await the KING. He halts the procession, takes the petition, whereupon, as the music hits a grinding discord, NICHOLSON STRIKES him.

  KING: What? What? Hey, madam, what’s this?

  (The KING falls back, and there is a moment of shocked silence, then turmoil.)

  EQUERRIES: Back! Back! Hold her! Is Your Majesty hurt?

  QUEEN: Sir! Sir!

  KING: What, what? No no. I am not hurt.

  (FITZROY, an equerry, struggles with NICHOLSON, as the QUEEN embraces the KING.)

  NICHOLSON: I have a property due to me from the Crown of England.

  KING: The poor creature’s mad. Do not hurt her, she’s not hurt me.

  NICHOLSON: Give me my property or the country will be drenched in blood.

  KING: Will it indeed? Well, not with this, madam. It’s a dessert knife. Wouldn’t cut a cabbage.

  NICHOLSON: I have a property due to me from the Crown of England.

  KING: Quite so, quite so.

  (NICHOLSON is hustled away.)

  QUEEN: You murderous fiend! (Embracing KING) Thank God I have you yet.

  KING: Hey, hey! Do not fuss, madam. The King has no wound, just a torn waistcoat.

  PRINCE OF WALES: One would consider that almost as vexing.

  KING: What was that?

  PRINCE OF WALES: I rejoice, papa, that you are unharmed.

  QUEEN: The son rejoices. The Prince of Wales rejoices. Faugh!

  DUKE OF YORK: Me too, pa. God save the King and so on.

  QUEEN: (Embracing him but looking at the PRINCE OF WALES) And he is fatter. Always fatter.

  KING: Fatter because he is not doing, what, what? Do you know England, sir?

  PRINCE OF WALES: I think so, sir.

  KING: You know Brighton, Bath – yes, but do you know its mills and manufactories? Do you know its farms? Because I do.

  (There are subdued groans from the two brothers, who have had this lecture before.)

  KING: I have made them my special study. I’ve written pamphlets on agriculture.

  DUKE OF YORK: Yes, sir.

  KING: Pigs, what.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Yes, father.

  KING: Stock. Good husbandry. Do you know what they call me?

  PRINCE OF WALES: What do they call you, father?

  KING: Farmer George. And do you know what that is?

  PRINCE OF WALES: Impertinence.

  KING: No, sir. Love.

  QUEEN: Affection.

  KING: It is admiration, sir.

  QUEEN: Respect.

  KING: What are your hobbies, sir?

  PRINCE OF WALES: Hobbies?

  QUEEN: Fashion.

  KING: Furniture. Do you know what mine are? Learning. Astronomy.

  QUEEN: The heavens are at his fingertips.

  KING: It is not good, sir, this idleness. That is why you are fat. Do not be fat, sir. Fight it! Fight it!

  (For a moment the Royal Family puts on an appearance of unity as the church bells are rung to celebrate the King’s deliverance, and the KING acknowledges the crowds. Then the PRINCE and the DUKE are waved away and the KING turns to WILLIAM PITT, a long, unbending figure in early middle age.)

  You have had a lucky escape, Mr Pitt.

  PITT: I, Your Majesty?

  KING: Yes, you. What, what. You’re my Prime Minister. I chose you. Anything happens to me you’ll be out, what, what, and Mr Fox will be in. Hey, hey.

  PITT: I think there’s no danger of that, sir.

  (THURLOW, having been left in charge of the would-be assassin, now returns, as do the PAGES, bringing a clean waistcoat.)

  THURLOW: Your Majesty, the woman will be examined by the Privy Council and if she is mad she will be confined in Bethlem Hospital.

  KING: She is fortunate to live in this kingdom, hey? It is not long since a madman tried to stab the King of France. The wretch was subjected to the most fiendish torments – his limbs burned with fire, the flesh lacerated with red-hot pincers, until in a merciful conclusion, he was stretched between four horses and torn asunder.

  (The KING is being helped off with his coat and as he raises his arms to enable the PAGES to undress him he too is outstretched. For a moment he seems to find it difficult to speak, as if he also is tortured (as indeed he will be). This uneasy moment is noted by the company and by the KING himself, but it passes and he is straightaway himself again.)

  We have at least outgrown such barbarities. The lowliest subject in this kingdom could not be subjected to such tortures in the name of justice.

  As the KING departs at the end of the first scene PITT and DUNDAS remain behind, as do FOX and SHERIDAN.

  FOX: What has happened to this country, Mr Pitt? A despot escapes the knife and they ring their bells.

  DUNDAS: You would not want His Majesty killed, Mr Fox?

  FOX: I do not want anyone killed, sir. Still, if a few ramshackle colonists in America can send the King packing, why can’t we?

  SHERIDAN: Hush, sir. You know you must not mention America to Mr Pitt.

  FOX: Forgive me, Mr Pitt. We must not remind yo
u of your Whig youth.

  (PITT ignores these taunts.)

  SHERIDAN: We are all Whigs until we are in government. Office makes Tories of us all.

  PITT: I am the King’s servant, sir, upon all matters.

  FOX: Except America.

  PITT: America, sir, is over.

  (PITT and DUNDAS go.)

  FOX: And we are over too.

  SHERIDAN: No. Not if we persevere in the House.

  FOX: In opposition? Nag, nag, nag? The King and Pitt together, one might as well piss against a wall. No. I am not of an opposing temper. Had I been in government I could have done so much. Now Pitt has stitched himself into the flag and passed himself off as the spirit of the nation and the Tories as the collective virtue of England. Well, I’m cured of politics, Sheridan.

  SHERIDAN: Of course you are.

  FOX: I shall turn my back on that rat-run, the House of Commons …

  SHERIDAN: Yes.

  FOX: … and that anal fistula of a king. I’m going to read, but not newspapers, write, but not pamphlets, and let this fart- ridden pox-infested country sink into its sea of pus.

  SHERIDAN: Yes.

  FOX: Why do nice people never get the government?

  SHERIDAN: Foolishness?

  WINDSOR

  There is a burst of Handel as PITT enters with a despatch box. He is followed by the PAGES, one with a portable desk, another with an inkstand.

  PAGES: The King, the King.

  (When the KING appears PITT bows deeply (as does everyone whenever the KING enters; the Court is of stifling formality). PITT then takes documents from the despatch box, which the KING reads and signs at the portable desk, all of which is covered by music. Meanwhile a handsome and disdainful equerry, CAPTAIN FITZROY, instructs a new equerry, GREVILLE, in his duties.)

  FITZROY: His Majesty is very fond of Handel, Greville, are you?

  GREVILLE: I am not familiar with his music, Captain Fitzroy.

  FITZROY: You will be. His Majesty does nothing by halves. If he is fond of a thing, be it Handel or mutton and potatoes, by God he will have it whenever occasion permits. His mode of life is simple and he is harnessed to routine. You will appreciate from what I have been saying that to be equerry to His Majesty is not the liveliest of situations.

  GREVILLE: I am anxious only to be of service.

  FITZROY: Quite so.

  KING: Married yet, Mr Pitt, what, what?

  PITT: No, sir.

  KING: Got your eye on anybody then, hey?

  PITT: No, sir.

  KING: More to the point – anybody got their eye on you, hey hey?

  PITT: Not to my knowledge, sir.

  KING: A man should marry. Yes, yes. Best thing I ever did. Queen’s a treasure. Not a beauty, not a beauty, but the better for it. Character what counts, eh, what, what?

  PITT: Nearly done, sir.

  KING: And children, you see. Children. Great comfort. Except they die, of course. Octavius, we lost. Lovely little fellow. Yes, yes.

  (He looks at one of the warrants he is signing.)

  This fellow we’re putting in as professor at Oxford, was his father Canon of Westminster?

  PITT: I’ve no idea, sir.

  KING: Yes, yes. Phillips, yes. That’s the father. This is the son. And the daughter married the organist of Norwich Cathedral. Sharpe. Whose son is the painter. Yes. And the other son is a master at Eton. And he had a niece who married somebody. (He tries to think whom.)

  PITT: Your Majesty’s knowledge of even the lowliest of your appointments never ceases to astonish me.

  KING: What’s happened to Fox?

  PITT: Retired to the country again, sir.

  KING: We must hope he stays there. Such a dodger. And too many ideas. Not like you, Mr Pitt. You don’t have ideas. Well, you have one big idea: balancing the books. And a very good idea to have, what, what? The best. And one with which I absolutely agree, as I agree with you, Mr Pitt, on everything … apart from the place we mustn’t mention.

  (He gives PITT a sidelong look. PITT says nothing.)

  KING: We didn’t see eye to eye over that, but we agreed to draw a veil over it. And I’m only mentioning it now just to show that I haven’t mentioned it. You know where I mean, what?

  PITT: Yes, sir.

  KING: The colonies.

  PITT: They’re now called the United States, sir.

  KING: Are they? Goodness me! Well, I haven’t mentioned them. I prefer not to, whatever they’re called. The United States. (There is a momentary hesitation on the words ‘United States’, as if the KING finds them difficult to articulate. Noted by the PAGES and the EQUERRIES and also by PITT, it quickly passes.) When I think about them … and I’m not thinking about them in particular … but when people in Parliament oppose, go against my wishes, I still find it very vexing. Try as I can, it seems to me disloyalty.

  PITT: Your Majesty should not take it so personally.

  KING: Not take it personally? But I’m King. This is my government. How else am I supposed to take it but personally?

  PITT: The Whigs believe it is their duty to oppose you, sir.

  KING: Duty? Duty? What sort of duty is that?

  PITT: The House is very quiet at the moment, sir.

  KING: Well, you must try and keep it that way, what, what? And we’ll get a lot more done. Good night, Mr Pitt.

  PITT: Good night, Your Majesty.

  (The KING is going. He stops.)

  KING: The Vicar of Lichfield.

  PITT: Sir?

  KING: Vicar of Lichfield. That’s whom the daughter of the organist of Norwich Cathedral married. Hmm. Good. Good.

  (The KING leaves, followed by PITT, and FITZROY resumes his instruction. A MAID with a warming pan crosses the stage.)

  FITZROY: Having risen punctually at six, His Majesty retires to bed punctually at eleven, though, since kings like to be ruled by clocks, it is all punctual. It is a regular succession of occupations chequered occasionally by the varieties of the moment. Some would and do call it dull …

  PAGES: Sharp! Sharp! The King! The King!

  (The KING comes on, now in his dressing-gown but still reading and signing papers.)

  FITZROY: … but monarchs like their days populous and determined. To be idle or alone are pools in which they might glimpse themselves. To lead them past such pools and mitigate their solitude is the whole duty of courtiers.

  (The MAID with the warming pan returns and the KING stops her.)

  KING: All done, hey? Bed warm, is it? What?

  MAID: Sir.

  KING: Got enough coal in, have you? (He opens the warming pan and looks inside, using his nightshirt to hold the hot handle.)

  KING: Know where this coal comes from, what?

  MAID: The cellar, sir.

  KING: No, no, Wales. That’s good Welsh coal, what. Off you go.

  FITZROY: His Majesty is nothing if not inquisitive, and interests himself in every department of the nation’s endeavours. His curiosity is benevolent, undirected. And infinite. (And from FITZROY’s tone, infinitely wearing.) All in all, he is a most cultivated fellow.

  (There now appears the statuesque figure of the Queen’s Mistress of the Robes, LADY PEMBROKE, carrying a candlestick. Tall, distinguished (and around fifty), she is an impressive sight.)

  KING: Ready?

  LADY PEMBROKE: Sir.

  KING: You the new equerry, are you, what?

  GREVILLE: Your Majesty.

  KING: Greville, good, good. Well that’s Lady Pembroke. Handsome woman, what? Daughter of the Duke of Marlborough. Stuff of generals. Blood of Blenheim. Husband an utter rascal. Eloped in a packet-boat. Yes.

  (All leave – backwards as ever – as LADY PEMBROKE conducts the KING into the presence of the QUEEN, before withdrawing herself. The QUEEN is in bed, knitting.)

  KING: Good evening, Mrs King.

  QUEEN: Good evening, Mr King.

  KING: When we get this far I call it dandy, hey?

  QUEEN: Indeed, Mr King.

/>   KING: Is it hot?

  QUEEN: No.

  KING: I am hot. Feel my belly.

  QUEEN: It rumbles, sir.

  KING: I ate a pear at supper.

  QUEEN: Two pears, sir. It is as tight as a drum.

  KING: Saving your presence I will try a fart.

  (The QUEEN indicates he should get out of bed first. Grumbling he does so, but it is no use.)

  QUEEN: No?

  (He shakes his head and gets back in again.)

  Lady Townshend came to see me this evening.

  KING: Yes?

  QUEEN: Wanted to know if she could sit during the drawing room.

  KING: Sit – what on earth for?

  QUEEN: She is about to give birth.

  KING: So? You gave birth fifteen times.

  QUEEN: Yes, but I do sit.

  KING: Hmm, well, nothing wrong with standing. It’s only two hours. What did you say?

  QUEEN: Told her she should stand.

  KING: Quite right. If everybody who is having a child starts sitting the next thing it’ll be everybody with gout, and before long the place’ll look like a Turkish harem, what, what. Cold fish, Pitt. Never smiles. Works though, oh yes. Never stops. Drinks, they say. But then they all drink. His father went mad. Doesn’t show any sign of that. Pain in my belly now. Oh, Charlotte!

  QUEEN: Oh, George!

  KING: (He begins to cry out) Oh, oh!

  (A curtain is quickly drawn across the scene as GREVILLE enters with SIR GEORGE BAKER, the King’s first physician.)

  BAKER: When did this bilious attack come on?

  GREVILLE: In the early hours of the morning.

  BAKER: Was His Majesty in pain?

  GREVILLE: Crying out with it.

  BAKER: I sent over some senna. Was that given to him?

  GREVILLE: Yes. The pain got worse.

  BAKER: Whereabouts was the pain?

  GREVILLE: Would it not be better to ask His Majesty that?

  BAKER: How long have you been in waiting? I cannot address His Majesty until he addresses me. I cannot enquire after His Majesty’s symptoms until he chooses to inform me of them.