Leopard in Exile

1 Under an English Heaven (June 1807) The rooftops of London sparkled as if they had been polished. The spring had been wet, miring carriages in hedgerows and making travel to the opening of Parliamentand the Seasonmore than usually hazardous. Despite that inconvenience, every townhouse and rented lodging in every evenremotely fashionable district of Town was full to bursting by the Ides of March, their steps newly limewashed and the knockers on the doors, for this Season was to be the most glittering since bloody Revolution had struck down the aristocracy of France fifteen years before. The Court, as was its usual custom, spent Yuletide at Holyrood Palace, but instead of spending deep winter in procession from one Great House to the next, this year the Court had returned directly to St. James Palace after Hogmanay, for there was much to do to prepare for a Royal wedding. The marriage-lines, and the treaty that accompanied them, had been ready for over two years, for this was a marriage of state, one that would bind two countries as well as two persons together. Prince Jamie of England, King Henry's heir, was to wed Princess Stephanie Julianna of Denmark, securing a Protestant royal bride for England and a new support for the Grande Alliance all in one stroke. But though speed was of the essence, first social considerations, then political ones, had delayed the match again and again. First, the Royal wedding embassytwo ships, the princess, her trousseau, and the final version of the treatyhad mysteriously vanished between Copenhagen and Roskild. Finding the princess had taken months. Soothing her brother, the Prince Regent, had taken longer, and by the time Stephanie was safe in England, all the ambassadors and dignitaries who had come for the wedding had returned home again. Though Prince Frederick wished to withdraw his sister from the marital alliance, King Henry had the girl under his hand, and was not inclined to lightly set aside what had been organized with such pains. So Henry smiled, and delayed, and prayed that the news from Europe would be brighterfor while the Great Beast daily engorged himself upon what had once been the sovereign thrones of Europe, his northern neighbor could not be sanguine about declaring himself Napoleon's enemy. Meanwhile, Henry must woo his own people as well, hesitant as always about accepting foreign princes into their midst. If the marriage did not have popular support, riots at home would negate any advantage England might claim upon a foreign battlefield. Secret peace negotiations conducted by Mr. Fox had caused further delay,5 for the making of the marriage, Talleyrand vowed, would be seen by France as an additional act of war. So King Henry had counterfeited public reasons for private caution until the negotiations had broken down completely. That had consumed the summer of the following year, and he vowed that the Princess would be married next Midsummer Day, for the strain of attempting to preserve her countenance as an unmarried maiden was far greater than he had ever imagined it could be. At least his heir had accepted the betrothal. Prince Jamie, once its most volatile opponent, was now the happy confederate of Princess Stephanie, though his relationship with his future bride held more of fellowship than of romance. The Danish Court was one of the most protocol-laden in all of Europe, and it seemed that the Princess had chafed under its restrictions. Despite the best efforts of Henry and his courtiers, the rumors about the Princess's behavior had multiplied daily in the weeks following her arrival, and each rumor held more than a grain of truth. It was not, as Henry had once said to the Duke of Wessex, as ifallthese reports could possibly be true"Though enough of them are that I havNorton, Andre is the author of 'Leopard in Exile' with ISBN 9780812545401 and ISBN 0812545400.