The Madness of George III Read online

  BAKER: I’m not interested in his water. I’m about to bleed him.

  FITZROY: It’s blue.

  BAKER: So?

  FITZROY: It has been blue since His Majesty has been ill.

  BAKER: Oh God, another doctor. Medicine is a science. It consists of observation.

  Whether a man’s water is blue or not is neither here nor there.

  (He goes, leaving the chamber-pot with FITZROY, who not knowing what to do with it eventually carries it off at arm’s length.)

  FITZROY: Well, there’s one blessing. At least he’s stopped all the what-whatting.

  WINDSOR

  PITT is sitting, going through his papers. DUNDAS stands waiting.

  DUNDAS: Half the trouble, to my mind, is that the cork’s too tight in the bottle. What is wanting with HM is a little quiet dissipation. A King and no mistress. Or anyone in a lofty situation. It’s unheard of.

  PITT: It has been known.

  DUNDAS: I’m sorry. (Sighing) But I’m right, am I not? The man has to break out.

  PITT: Fifteen children seem to me to indicate a degree of conscientiousness in that regard.

  DUNDAS: I’m talking of pleasure, not duty. It’s so dull.

  PITT: Better a dull monarchy than a disreputable one. They are a devoted couple.

  DUNDAS: The bloom has at any rate gone off the Queen’s ugliness. Since she fell from her carriage and broke her nose she’s quite handsome.

  PITT: I do not think the King appreciates that he cannot afford to be ill. I shall point out to him that if he is ill for any length of time the Government will fall. That is the best medicine.

  (Enter THURLOW in a flurry.)

  THURLOW: I thought I was late. Then the King really would be mad.

  PITT: I would be obliged if you did not use that word.

  THURLOW: What word?

  PITT: Mad. He is no madder than the generality.

  THURLOW: I’ve been in the City. The stocks are down again and they expect a run on the Bank. Some damn fool must have talked.

  PITT: Everybody talks.

  (FITZROY comes in, and through the door we hear a babble of excited German.)

  FITZROY: His Majesty sends his compliments and will receive you shortly.

  THURLOW: Any change?

  (FITZROY disdains even to answer the question.)

  PITT: Captain Fitzroy. I sent a box of the most urgent papers requiring His Majesty’s signature. Has he dealt with them?

  FITZROY: No, sir.

  (He goes back into the King’s room.)

  PITT: Some of them are a month old. Government is at a halt.

  THURLOW: You have been spoiled. A king never behind with his boxes. That’s half the trouble. Too conscientious.

  PITT: These are appointments, pensions, jobs. Votes. An ailing King means an ailing Government.

  THURLOW: So there’s a lull in government. The country will be grateful. There’s too much damned Government.

  (The door opens again and BAKER backs through it.)

  BAKER: I have every hope of a cure, Your Majesty.

  KING: (Off) Cure, you cretin? You couldn’t cure a gammon ham.

  BAKER: No, Your Majesty.

  KING: (Off) Push off, you fat turd.

  BAKER: Yes, Your Majesty. No, Your Majesty.

  (The door closes.)

  Oh, Lord Chancellor, I should not have to put up with this.

  THURLOW: Why? You’re being paid.

  DUNDAS: How is the King?

  BAKER: The same. Worse. He varies. His tongue runs away with him. Thoughts that a well man keeps under he just babbles forth.

  PITT: Is he fit to be seen?

  BAKER: By whom?

  PITT: In public. He has to be seen or he will be thought dying and the stocks fall further.

  BAKER: Have they fallen again? Oh dear. My broker was expecting a run on the bank.

  THURLOW: Your broker, Baker?

  BAKER: Yes.

  THURLOW: And what were you doing with your broker, Baker?

  BAKER: Well, what does one do with one’s broker? One has affairs.

  THURLOW: Not selling stock?

  BAKER: I may have sold a little.

  THURLOW: So it was you, sir.

  BAKER: Me, sir? No, sir! What, sir?

  THURLOW: Fool! Drivelling idiot!

  BAKER: Sir, I am President of the Royal College of Physicians.

  THURLOW: Yes, and Secretary of the Royal Institute of Blabbers. You have started a run on the Bank, sir.

  BAKER: Me, sir? No, sir!

  THURLOW: The King’s doctor sells his stock, ergo the King is not expected to recover.

  PAGE: Sharp! Sharp! The King! The King!

  BAKER: I am a poor man. I have my family to think of.

  (PITT takes little notice of all this, but as the king is announced gathers up his papers and stands up. baker bolts from the room. FITZROY opens the door, but it is some moments before the KING comes through, legs bandaged and moving very slowly.

  KING: Mr Pitt? Mr Pitt? You see us suddenly an old man.

  GREVILLE: Will Your Majesty not sit down?

  (FITZROY heaves a sigh of disapproval.)

  KING: The King never sits when seeing his ministers. Sits, no. Shits though, yes. They say I soiled my small clothes this morning. It is not true. Or it may be true. My flesh is on fire. I must quench it whatever way comes to hand. Dundas, yes? (Peers.)

  DUNDAS: Your Majesty.

  KING: The Scots one. Thurlow?

  THURLOW: Your Majesty.

  KING: Father was Rector of Ashfield. Brother’s Bishop of Durham. Shaggy fellow. Yes. Why do you look at me? Do not look at me. I am the King. Speak, speak.

  PITT: Perhaps I can lay before Your Majesty some of the more urgent papers awaiting Your Majesty’s signature.

  (The KING motions for them.)

  KING: Yes, Mr Pitt, I do not see so well. There is no mist here?

  PITT: No, sir.

  KING: Oh, my aching brain. What is this? (Looking at the paper) America, is it?

  PITT: No, sir. It is a warrant for the most urgent expenditure. I beg Your Majesty to sign it.

  KING: America is not to be spoken of, is that it?

  PITT: For your own peace of mind, sir. But it is not America. It is a warrant for –

  KING: Peace of mind! I have no peace of mind. I have had no peace of mind since we lost America. Forests, old as the world itself, meadows, plains, strange delicate flowers, immense solitudes. And all nature new to art. All ours. Mine. Gone. A paradise lost. The trumpet of sedition has sounded. We have lost America. Soon we shall lose India, the Indies, Ireland even, our feathers plucked one by one, this island reduced to itself alone, a great state mouldered into rottenness and decay. And they will lay it at my door. What is this I am reading? It is America. The words fly ahead of me. I cannot catch them in the mist.

  PITT: If Your Majesty would trust me, it would assist your ministers immeasurably if Your Majesty would just sign the warrants. It is most urgent, I assure you.

  KING: But I have to read them. I do not sign anything I do not read. I might be signing my own deposition. Is that why you are gathered?

  THURLOW: No, sir. We are your loyal servants, sir. In your present frame of mind …

  KING: What do you know of my mind? Or its frame? Something is shaking the frame; shaking the mind out of its frame. I am not going out of my mind; my mind is going out of me.

  (The KING begins to scratch himself or even to take off some of his clothes. He turns to leave.)

  KING: Go, all of you.

  PITT: Sir –

  KING: Go, go.

  PITT: I beg you, sir. Sir (Holding out the warrants for the KING).

  DUNDAS: William!

  PITT: I beg you.

  (PITT snatches a pen from PAPANDIEK, seizes the writing desk from FORTNUM and thrusts it at the KING. DUNDAS tries to restrain him and PITT’s loss of dignity seems even to shock the KING.)

  KING: Beg me what?

&
nbsp; PITT: The warrants, sir. Your Majesty must try to be well … or … or … the Government will suffer.

  KING: The Go … Go … Government.

  (The KING takes the warrant, looks at it unseeingly, hands it to FITZROY and goes. The PAGES, smoothly but with an air of disapproval, recover the pen and writing desk from PITT and as FITZROY wearily hands PITT the unsigned warrant they all follow the KING out.)

  PITT: He can see … so he can read. He only has to sign.

  THURLOW: Being a lawyer, I have had some commerce with madness.

  (PITT looks.)

  I speak as I find. When I was a young man I was friend to one William Cowper. I saw him removed to a madhouse in St Albans. For all I know he’s still there. Mind you, he was a morbid fellow. Poet.

  DUNDAS: What is it like?

  THURLOW: Like taking off one’s braces.

  DUNDAS: There is consolation in it, you mean?

  THURLOW: For some. Were the King not in pain one might envy him. Saying what he likes.

  (PITT takes a swig from a hip flask, such a regular feature of his behaviour it is not noted in the stage directions.)

  PITT: I have a great disrelish for absurdity. But I will not believe it. Let us have no more talk of madness. Because I do not believe it, do you hear?

  THURLOW: God give me patience! It is not what you believe. It is what Parliament believes. It is what the Prince of Wales believes. And it is what the City believes.

  PITT: That is true. So long an absence will be construed. The public will think him dead. The King must be seen. It need not be too severe a junket, but he must be seen.

  WINDSOR

  The curtains are drawn back and the full stage revealed, where a concert is in progress. The court is assembled, though only the KING and QUEEN are seated, the KING beating time to the music, which is, inevitably, Handel. The KING is now somewhat dishevelled, one stocking rolled down, the easier to scratch his irritated leg, the sores on which are plain to be seen. He scratches at his body too, feeling himself ever more uncomfortable in it.

  KING: (Shouting and waving his stick) Louder! Louder! Come on, sirs, give it some stick! Forte, forte. One two three, one two three, one two three.

  (The music gets louder. The KING gets up.)

  QUEEN: Hush, sir. You are talking.

  KING: I know I am talking. They are playing. I am talking. Forte, fiddler, forte. That was Handel. I met him once. Ordinary looking fellow.

  Lord Thurlow, I have his harpsichord. Mr Pitt, Mr Dundas, Baker. Now, Baker would make me believe I have the gout. If I have the gout how could I kick the part without pain? You, sir! Kick it. Kick it, I say.

  (FITZROY does so with maximum disdain.)

  Is that gout? No. (He goes on down the line.) Elbow people, knee gentlemen, bending persons, hand kissers.

  (The KING has stopped in front of the prince of wales and DR WARREN.)

  PRINCE OF WALES: Your Majesty.

  KING: The Prince of Wales! What brings you to Windsor, sir?

  PRINCE OF WALES: I had heard you were ill, father.

  KING: Want to hump the old bird out of the nest, is that it, you great cuckoo? Get your fat hands on government, is that it?

  PRINCE OF WALES: May I present Dr Richard Warren, Your Majesty. Dr Warren is my personal physician.

  KING: He is personal physician to half of London. Well, you are not my physician, sir. No man can serve two masters.

  WARREN: I am a servant of humanity, sir.

  KING: Yes, and how much does humanity pay you? (How much does humanity pay him, eh, Greville?) You should tell your patient the Prince that he is too fat. Don’t slouch, sir. Well, I am old and infirm. I shall not trouble you long.

  PRINCE OF WALES: I wish you good health, father.

  KING: Wish me, wish me? You wish me death, you plump little partridge.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Hush, sir.

  KING: Hush? Hush? You dare to keep the King of England from speaking his mind?

  (The KING turns away from the PRINCE, then suddenly turns back and launches himself on him; there is turmoil as KING and PRINCE fall struggling to the floor, the KING’s hands at the PRINCE’s neck.)

  FITZROY: The Prince has fainted.

  WARREN: Fetch some Hungary water. Give him air.

  (The PRINCE OF WALES is dragged to one side of the stage where WARREN and SHERIDAN try and revive him.)

  KING: I know your game, I know your game, he wants to see me put away.

  QUEEN: No, no, sir. It is something you ate. Come away, sir.

  KING: Fools, don’t you see it? Then you will all be put out; first the King, then all his company.

  (He is hustled out by GREVILLE and FITZROY as the QUEEN returns to appeal to PITT and THURLOW.)

  QUEEN: It is the son, Mr Pitt. This Warren, he knows nothing. He is doctor to the son. If you are wanting to kill the father get the doctor to the son. (To the PRINCE.) We know your game, Monster!

  (The PRINCE is still on the floor being attended to by WARREN.)

  THURLOW: God, these foreign women.

  PRINCE OF WALES: He was like a wild animal. How am I?

  WARREN: Slight bruising, sir.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Slight? Good God. I feel I’ve been hanged. And now having seen the King, what is your impression?

  WARREN: Wholly demented, sir. A palsy of the brain.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Do not say so, but I can believe it. Did you see his eyes? They were like blackcurrant jelly. Still, as heir to the throne I know that His Majesty bears a heavy burden. I fear the time is coming, Mr Pitt, when it is a burden we shall be forced to share.

  (Government and Opposition are now in two groups with the PRINCE in the middle.)

  Ah, Baker, how is the King?

  BAKER: Still talking, sir, and the pulse is 104.

  THURLOW: Ah. Quite wiry still.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Then he is not in command of his senses?

  BAKER: Not at the moment, sir.

  WARREN: Nor likely to be, if I may say so, sir.

  PRINCE OF WALES: In that case, as his son and heir I must make the decisions concerning His Majesty’s health. Firstly, Sir George will in future be partnered by my own physician, Dr Warren.

  PITT: I must insist that this arrangement be subject to the approval of His Majesty’s ministers.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Insist? Approval? A son’s concern for his sick father. What are we coming to?

  THURLOW: Your Royal Highness is right. This is a family matter.

  PRINCE OF WALES: I shall also consult the physicians as to whether, until his Majesty has recovered a right perspective, he should be separated from the Queen.

  WARREN: Her presence undoubtedly abets his illness, sir.

  PITT: I must point out, sir, that His Majesty has frequently expressed his desire never to be separated from the Queen.

  SHERIDAN: But the King is not himself, Mr Pitt. He does not know his own mind.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Mr Sheridan is right. And I know my mother. She puts wrong ideas into his head, and would interfere in his treatment. No. They are better apart. We shall see to it. Lord Chancellor. Mr Pitt.

  (The PRINCE and company exit. AS PITT, DUNDAS and THURLOW leave, the KING comes hurrying down the steps pursued by the QUEEN, LADY PEMBROKE, FITZROY, GREVILLE and the pages. The KING has taken off his shoes and stockings, lest they get wet, and he lifts Lady Pembroke’s dress for the same reason and drags her with him across the floor.)

  KING: I want a bag. A bag.

  QUEEN: What for?

  KING: The state secrets. I must carry them with me to the grave. London is flooded. We must take the children and flee to the higher ground. Save Amelia, Adolphus and little Octavius.

  QUEEN: Octavius is dead, sir.

  KING: Who killed him? His brother? He would kill me, I know. You too, Elizabeth.

  (He touches LADY PEMBROKE.) You must not drown.

  QUEEN: Hush, sir. You are talking.

  KING: I know I am talking. Do not tell me I talk. I foll
ow my words. I run after them. I am dragged at locution’s tail. This ceaseless discourse precedes me wherever I go. Telling me I talk! I have to talk in order to keep up with my thoughts. I thought he had taken you.

  QUEEN: Who, sir?

  KING: The other George. The fat one. You were not in my bed. I thought you had deceived me with the son.

  QUEEN: Sir!

  KING: Still, Elizabeth comes to my bed, don’t you, Elizabeth?

  (He embraces LADY PEMBROKE and clasps her to him. This is too much for the QUEEN.)

  QUEEN: Leave us! Leave us. You too, Elizabeth. And you, and you. All of you, out, all of you, out. (They go.) Now talk away.

  KING: Tell me, which of us do you prefer? He sneaks into your bed, I know. Well, do not flatter yourself, madam. He has many women. You are just one and not even the first. Fancy, his mother is not even the first of the son’s women, think of that. The fat hands. That young belly. Those plump thighs. The harlot’s delight.

  QUEEN: Be still, sir. For pity’s sake. Listen, George. Hear me. (She holds his mouth closed to stop his babble.) Do you think you are mad?

  KING: I don’t know. I don’t know. Madness isn’t such torment. Madness is not half-blind. Madmen can stand. They skip! They dance! And I talk. I talk. I hear the words so I have to speak them. I have to empty my head of the words. Something has happened. Something is not right. Oh, Charlotte.

  (FITZROY comes in, followed by LADY PEMBROKE.)

  QUEEN: Can we never be solitary? I told you to leave us. Go away, sir. His Majesty and I are talking.

  KING: Is it the floods? Have the waters spread?

  QUEEN: Hush, sir.

  (The KING nods and puts his finger to his lips, as gentle and tractable now as a few moments before he was the reverse.)

  KING: Yes. Fitzroy is right. You are right to take precautions.

  FITZROY: I have been instructed by His Royal Highness to move Your Majesty’s lodgings, ma’am …

  QUEEN: Why? Where?

  FITZROY: It is to assist His Majesty’s recovery, ma’am.

  QUEEN: But I am the Queen.

  FITZROY: Your Majesty is not to have access to the King’s presence, ma’am.

  QUEEN: Not have access … You mean I am not permitted to see the King.

  KING: What is this not permitted? Not permitted?

  QUEEN: No, no.

  FITZROY: The contents of your apartments have already been transferred, ma’am.