The Prince and the Quakeress: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy Page B

show the slightest exasperation when George failed to grasp a point; he would explain it in several different ways to make it clear. George was contented as long as he had his dear Mamma and dear Uncle Bute close at hand. He was aware though of the trouble between those dear people and his tutors. Lord Harcourt and Bishop Hayter always seemed to be putting their heads together to annoy Mamma and Lord Bute. He was conscious of the way these two ignored Mamma – and Lord Bute – when they came to the schoolroom and how they always tried to denigrate or shrug aside as worthless anything either Mamma or Lord Bute suggested.
    George sometimes felt that he was like a bone between growling dogs. He knew very well whom he wanted to care for him.
    ‘I don’t know what those men are doing here,’ said Mamma again and again. ‘I should like to know what they teach you. Stone is a sensible man and so is Scott, but they are in subordinate positions and cannot raise their voices against those two.’
    George said mildly that Lord Harcourt was always pleasantto him, to which his mother replied that this was doubtless because the man knew his pupil would one day be King and he felt it expedient to be, but she did not trust him; and she feared that what he wished to teach George above all else was to distrust his own mother.
    ‘That he could never do, dearest Mamma,’ cried George.
    ‘I know that, my son. You may not be clever with books but you have the good sense to recognize your friends. And there are two on whom you can always depend – your mother and dear Lord Bute.’
    ‘I should indeed be a fool not to know that.’
    ‘You are my own child. Your mother would always be your best friend… and Lord Bute too.’
    ‘Lord Bute is as a father to me. I love him dearly.’
    ‘It pleases me to hear you say it. What a wonderful man he is! What should we do without him? It was a fortunate day for us when the rain brought him into our tent.’
    ‘Mamma, I often think of Lady Bute.’
    ‘Why should you do that?’
    ‘She is his wife, and wives and husbands are usually together… sometimes.’
    ‘Oh, she is happy enough. She lives in London. I doubt not he visits her now and then. She is a fortunate woman. Did you know he has given her fourteen children in as little time as it takes to have them?’
    ‘I always thought,’ said George fervently, ‘that he was a wonderful man.’
    ‘So you see,’ said the Princess firmly, ‘Lady Bute has nothing of which to complain.’
    *
    Newcastle, watching the situation in the Prince’s schoolroom with close attention, was well aware of the growing influence of the Princess Dowager and Lord Bute. It was dangerous, he decided. Each week the future King grew more and more devoted to those two; and when he stepped out of the schoolroom, possibly to the throne, he would be completely conditioned, a puppet of theirs. What Newcastle desired was that the boy should be a puppet of his, and it was the task of the tutors, Harcourt and Hayter, to bring about this desirable state of affairs.
    But they were not succeeding.
    Summoned to his presence for consultation they declared that the odds were against them. The Prince was constantly in the company of his mother and the man everyone now believed to be her paramour. It was too strong an influence to be easily broken. Moreover, Scott and Stone were on the side of the Princess and Bute.
    ‘Then,’ said Newcastle, ‘as we cannot get the Princess out of her son’s household, and while she is there so will her lover be, we must at least rid ourselves of Scott and Stone.’
    This presented a problem, because neither Harcourt nor Hayter were greatly concerned with the studies of the Prince. They left that to the professors. Scott and Stone were the learned gentlemen.
    ‘There are other learned gentlemen,’ declared Newcastle. ‘Get rid of those two and we will find them.’
    Hayter said that Stone read strange books and was constantly preaching