Lies, Damned Lies, and History(6)

I had no idea what was keeping all that flesh from falling out of her dress.

‘Blimey,’ said Markham, beside me. ‘You don’t get many of those to the pound.’

She climbed awkwardly from her carriage – it took two stout footmen to assist her – paused for the gasp of astonished admiration from the crowd, which never came, and began to make her way towards the doors of the Abbey, still standing open as the last of the guests slowly filed inside.

As she approached, a number of enormous, ugly men, hilariously dressed as pageboys, barred her path. Her husband, expecting trouble and knowing his wife, had hired professional prize-fighters to keep her out, led by the famous Gentleman Jackson himself. Which in itself was a good idea, but dressing them as pageboys probably was not.

Whether they actually would have manhandled her in front of the crowd, we’ll never know. The crowd, sensing drama, fell quiet. She stood before them, unaccompanied even by a single lady-in-waiting. I thought she looked rather small (although still extremely fat) and pathetic. Raising her head, she shouted, ‘The Queen. I am the Queen. Open.’

To say that her voice carried was an understatement. No horses actually bolted, but flocks of pigeons took to the air, probably never to return.

The crowd roared its approval of the pre-coronation entertainment and took up the cry.

‘The Queen. The Queen.’

Nothing happened, and the shouting died down again while everyone waited to see what she would do next.

I could hear quite clearly from where we were standing.

She said, in strongly accented English, but with enormous dignity, ‘I am the Queen of England,’ picked up her skirts, and tried to squeeze between two cauliflower-eared pageboys, each the size of the Colossus of Rhodes.

Somewhere just inside the abbey, an unseen official roared, ‘Do your duty, by God,’ and with an echoing boom that could probably be heard three streets away, the massive doors slammed shut.

The crowd gasped. It was an almighty insult. True, she hadn’t actually been crowned queen, but she was the wife of the king and no matter how much they loathed each other – and they did loathe each other – it was still a dreadful public insult.

She should have left. She should have gathered herself together, returned to her carriage and driven away. If she had left then, dignity and health intact, she would have won the day. At this point, the crowd was behind her. Being Caroline, of course, she blew it.

She uttered a shriek of rage, flung her ostrich feather fan to the ground, picked up her skirts and showing scandalous amounts of chubby leg, she ran.

She didn’t walk, stroll, perambulate, amble, saunter, pace, stride, or waddle – she ran, and this was not an age in which highborn women ran. And certainly not in public. Probably most of them didn’t even know how. For a princess – a royal – to hoist up her skirts, publicly show her legs and run was unthinkable.

Except that it did happen. She ran. Well, no, to be accurate – she lumbered.

The crowd, eager to see what could possibly happen next, streamed along behind her.

‘Come on,’ said Markham, seizing my arm, and we went with them.

Actually, I worried for her. Even though it was still early morning, it was a hot day. She was upset. She was extremely overweight. And she was running. It couldn’t be good for her. Tonight, she would be taken ill and three weeks later, she would be dead. She really shouldn’t be doing this.

She ran around the outside of the Abbey, dodging startled pedestrians coming the other way, all of whom probably wondered what the hell was going on.

We knew she would head for the cloisters.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Markham, keeping a firm grip on my arm as people surged around us. ‘Is she mad? They’re never going to let her in. Why doesn’t she just go home? There’s going to be trouble.’

She tried the door to the East Cloister first, but someone inside had got there first, and that door was locked. She rattled the door latch and pounded on the door, but it remained unopened. The Abbey reared above her, massive and silent.

For a moment she paused, and then, nothing daunted, she set off again. For the West Cloister this time. She was really determined to get in. I wondered what was happening inside. Could they hear the hubbub over the music? Were they all sitting inside in the cool, listening to the uproar work its way around the outside of the building?

She was equally unlucky at the West Cloister where she halted, red-faced, chest heaving. And trust me, there was a lot of chest to heave. Her feathers were askew and her gown so disordered that she was barely decent. Now, surely, was the time for someone from her household to approach, take her arm, and gently lead her back to her carriage. If she’d actually had any friends in this country, that’s what they should have done. She stood, quite alone in a wide circle of people, all silently watching to see what she would do next. I wondered if it was at this point that she realised how alone she was.