The Madness of George III

  (Gently PAPANDIEK does so, the KING moaning to himself.)

  GREVILLE: Have you no faith in these treatments?

  WILLIS: They will not cure him.

  GREVILLE: So why permit them?

  WILLIS: My colleagues have prescribed them. Besides, if His Majesty perceives that it is in my power to remit them, or cut them short, they are not without value.

  GREVILLE: Then that is torture.

  WILLIS: Medicine, young man … my medicine … is mastery. When I stop the blistering, the King is grateful and he perceives my authority, and thus he will come to obey me.

  KING: I had an empire once. There were forests there and lakes and plains and little soft hills.

  PAPANDIEK: Leave off, sir. The doctor says you ain’t to talk of America.

  KING: Monarch and master, I have carried my eager hands to every part of that smiling land, but wherever I have laid my loving hand my touch has raised mutiny.

  GREVILLE: Be still sir. Hush, I beg you.

  KING: The snowy paps are all inflamed, all nature in a turmoil.

  BRAUN: (So that WILLIS should hear) It ain’t America. It’s Lady P.

  KING: But with tact and love I shall take her hand and carry it to my sceptre, to let her feel its strength and its softness.

  (PAPANDIEK tries to hush the KING.)

  BRAUN: (To WILLIS) It’s America or it’s Her Ladyship, sir, one or the other, but it shouldn’t be either, should it, sir?

  WILLIS: These fancies are improper, sir. You have been told before. I see you, sir.

  KING: No, sir. You do not see me. Nobody sees me. I am not here.

  WILLIS: I have you in my eye, sir, and I shall keep you in my eye until you begin to behave and do as you are told.

  KING: I am the King. I tell. I am not told. I am the verb, sir. I am not the object.

  WILLIS: Until you can govern yourself you are not fit to govern others, and until you do I shall govern you.

  KING: Govern yourself then, you goat. An old fumbling fellow like you tupping the Queen. Where is she? What have you done with her?

  WILLIS: Have a care, sir, or I shall have you blistered again.

  KING: Where is she? Have you taken her to Lincolnshire to your colony? Is she ploughing, sir, with the others, or are you ploughing her?

  WILLIS: Fetch the waistcoat.

  KING: Is she dead? Has he killed her? Show me the Queen. Show me.

  WILLIS: The Queen is not dead, sir. And if you behave yourself and do as I tell you, then the Queen shall come to Kew –

  KING: Kew?

  WILLIS: and you shall see her.

  BRAUN: We’re going to Kew, sir.

  KING: Kew? What’s this? What for? I’d as soon go to Japan. And the other one, the other one. Shall I see her?

  (FORTNUM returns, seemingly wearing the strait waistcoat, though it is in fact inside out.)

  WILLIS: No, sir. You will not see her. And you will not speak of her.

  KING: Elizabeth, shall I see her? I must speak of her. I love her … I love her …

  (FORTNUM grasps the KING’s hands, and BRAUN and PAPANDIEK pull the waistcoat off FORTNUM’s outstretched arms and on to the KING’s, so that he is now wearing the waistcoat the right way out.)

  KING: Then I am dead. I am a coffin king. I will be murdered: taken out and my genitals torn off and pulled apart by horses and my limbs exhibited in a neighbouring town. I am here, Doctor Willis, but I am not all there.

  (The last glimpse of the KING before the curtain is drawn is of BRAUN with his foot in the small of the KING’s back, pulling the straps tight.)

  CARLTON HOUSE

  When the curtain is pulled back on Carlton House we find the prince of wales in a similar situation, his servant with his foot in the small of the PRINCE’s back fastening him into a corset, prior to having his portrait painted.

  PRINCE OF WALES: No, no, please. It is torture. What a terrible garment.

  DUKE OF YORK: Courage, Prin.

  PRINCE Of WALES: No. Let me breathe.

  (They stop the lacing.)

  SHERIDAN: When Parliament declares Your Highness Regent, Pitt will endeavour to impose restraints.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Restraints? What sort of restraints? I want no restraints. Go on. Go on.

  (The lacing begins again.)

  Restraints, what on?

  SHERIDAN: Your freedom to make appointments.

  FOX: There can be no question of it. When you are declared Regent it must be with full powers to dismiss Pitt and appoint … whomsoever you choose in his place.

  BURKE: Charles!

  FOX: Of course as Whigs we’ve always maintained the opposite, that the power of the Crown should be restrained, but these are extraordinary circumstances.

  PRINCE OF WALES: They are. I’m a good fellow, for a start. My father wasn’t … isn’t. And I’m a Whig too and for the best of reasons. My father ruled me like he did the Bostonians, and now this is my tea-party. Restrictions indeed.

  FOOTMAN: Sir Boothby Skrymshir and Mr Ramsden Skrymshir, Your Royal Highness.

  SHERIDAN: Ah, Sir Boothby.

  BOOTHBY: Your Royal Highness.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Sir.

  SHERIDAN: Sir Boothby is here to commiserate with Your Royal Highness on the continuing indisposition of His Majesty.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Much touched, much touched.

  BOOTHBY: How is His Majesty’s indisposition?

  PRINCE OF WALES: It continues. It continues.

  BOOTHBY: My nephew Ramsden has been utterly disconsolate, his spirits only sustained by Your Royal Highness’s own resplendent health and the amplification of your prospects.

  PRINCE OF WALES: So kind.

  BOOTHBY: In the event of … in any event, my nephew is most anxious to serve Your Royal Highness in any capacity whatsoever, but in particular as the Steward of the Market of Newbury.

  DUKE OF YORK: Steward of the market of where?

  RAMSDEN: Dewsbury.

  BOOTHBY: Newbury, Ramsden.

  DUKE OF YORK: I’m Bishop of Osnabruck, you know. Keen on sheep, are you?

  BOOTHBY: A childhood dream, sir.

  PRINCE OF WALES: We are touched by your solicitude, sir, and when the time comes we shall remember.

  BOOTHBY: Sir. Bow, Ramsden. (They are going out.) Backwards, Ramsden, backwards.

  SHERIDAN: And I am most grateful to you.

  FOX: Grateful! To that booby?

  PRINCE OF WALES: Ludicrous fellow.

  SHERIDAN: Perhaps. But his vote is not ludicrous, nor the three other votes he brings with him. It is on him and other such marketable flotsam we depend.

  (Going back to his chart) So that’s four more.

  FOOTMAN: Captain Fitzroy, Your Royal Higness.

  (FITZROY has come in.)

  PRINCE OF WALES: Ah, Fitzroy. How is our invalid?

  FITZROY: Raving this morning, sir; in the straitjacket this afternoon.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Oh dear.

  DUKE OF YORK: New man not doing the trick then?

  FITZROY: No, sir.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Oh, what a shame.

  (FITZROY draws SHERIDAN aside, but FOX overhears.)

  FITZROY: I have come with Lord Thurlow.

  FOX: That brute? What for?

  SHERIDAN: Lord Thurlow is here, sir.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Excellent, excellent. Fetch him in.

  FOX: This is your spy, I suppose. Why didn’t you tell me?

  SHERIDAN: There is no party without obnoxious persons. He has never been on the wrong side.

  FOX: I will not serve with him. He hasn’t got a Whig breath in his body.

  SHERIDAN: Charles. You cannot undo weeks of calculation by a fit of pique.

  FITZROY: Lord Thurlow, sir.

  THURLOW: Your Royal Highness.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Lord Thurlow.

  THURLOW: I can tell you in confidence that Mr Pitt is so despondent that he is preparing to return to private practice as a barrister.

  SH
ERIDAN: So, he’s giving up. That’s worth knowing. FOX: It is, only I read it in the newspaper this morning. How are we to recompense you for this invaluable intelligence and for your … defection?

  THURLOW: Defection, no. Administrations come and go. As I see it, the function of the Lord Chancellor is to provide continuity.

  FOX: What’s your price?

  THURLOW: To remain on the Woolsack.

  PRINCE OF WALES: You shall, I promise you.

  THURLOW: Thank you, sir, and were I to offer advice I would say that the present situation calls for the utmost delicacy.

  PRINCE OF WALES: Oh yes. Quite agree. The utmost.

  THURLOW: Everything will come to you in due course. Your Highness has but to wait …

  prince of WALES: Wait! Wait! My life has been waiting. I want to be doing not dangling. I endeavour to cultivate languor, but it is hard to be languid when the throne of England is pending. To be heir to the throne is not a position; it is a predicament. People laugh at me. What must I do to be taken seriously? I tell you, sir, to be Prince of Wales is not becoming to a gentleman.

  (FOX, DUKE OF YORK, FITZROY, all leave with the PRINCE OF WALES.)

  THURLOW: Yes. It takes character to withstand the rigours of indolence. Do we need Fox?

  SHERIDAN: We need the Prince and they come as a set.

  THURLOW: So, your support is growing.

  SHERIDAN: Yes. The next vote will be close. Well?

  THURLOW: I am not ready yet.

  KEW

  The Palace has been closed for the winter so the furniture is under dustsheets, the chandelier bagged, the rooms echoing and empty. The party from Windsor comes down the stairs huddled in rugs, scarves and overcoats, and carrying lanterns. PAPANDIEK wheels the KING in the chair, trundling it heavily down the stairs.

  BRAUN: (Sarcastically) Sharp! Sharp! The King! The King!

  KING: Not here. Not here. She is not here. What have you done with her? She will be at Kew, you said.

  WILLIS: It is not time. You are not fit to meet her yet.

  KING: It was a lie! Not fit? You are an ordained minister, and you told me a lie. Well, that lie, sir, will have you out of a living.

  (The PAGES restrain him from attacking WILLIS.)

  That lie will have you out of that famous farm of yours, and loose your tame lunatics across Lincolnshire. Liar! Liar!

  WILLIS: Hush, sir.

  (The PAGES force the KING into the chair.)

  Her Majesty is here at Kew, and when you learn to conduct yourself properly you shall see her.

  KING: Mendacious old fool.

  BRAUN: Cheer up, Georgie, my old love.

  KING: You rascal.

  BRAUN: God, how he stinks.

  KING: You slackarsed drizzle-prick.

  (WILLIS motions for the clamps to be fastened and the KING restrained.)

  WILLIS: I’ve had enough of this foolishness. Come to your senses, sir.

  KING: I can’t come to my senses. I have to go to them, and I cannot go to them because I am fastened here.

  WILLIS: Now that we are safely in our new abode, shall we give thanks? Let us pray.

  KING: How can I? I cannot put my hands together.

  WILLIS: Prayer is an attitude of the soul.

  KING: Bollocks. You have to put your hands together or it doesn’t signify.

  WILLIS: Ο God, who knowest us to be set in the midst of great dangers that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright …

  KING: Yes. And why? Liar.

  WILLIS: … Grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  KING: Amen. Liar.

  (During the prayer we see PITT come down the stairs, out of sight of the KING.)

  PITT: Amen.

  (WILLIS draws aside to speak to PITT, still keeping him out of the KING’s eyeline.)

  WILLIS: I was not expecting you, sir.

  PITT: Why? It’s Tuesday, my customary day.

  WILLIS: It’s Christmas Day.

  PITT: Is it? It’s all one to me. (He looks at the king warily, but still out of view.)

  Handier, Kew.

  WILLIS: Colder.

  PITT: It’s the summer palace.

  WILLIS: Summer palaces, winter palaces … I am not up in such matters. But I would have protested had I known. Sweats and fevers in such a cold place will do him no good. It is a tomb. I wonder the Prince of Wales does not appreciate that. (PITT says nothing, though it is plain the PRINCE appreciated it only too well. PAPANDIEK is sitting hunched up by the KING’s chair so that the two of them look like Lear and his Fool. PITT regards them.)

  PITT: I used to sit with my father too. Hours at a time. He would not speak. When he was well he would read Shakespeare to the family. When it came to the comic parts he handed the book to me.

  WILLIS: I have never read Shakespeare.

  (PITT looks with the nearest he comes to surprise.)

  I am a clergyman.

  (PITT, making a definite decision, moves into the eyeline of the KING, who straightaway begins to struggle.)

  PITT: Your Majesty.

  KING: Mr Pitt. Mr Pitt. I have something to say … No, no. Let me up … let me up … from this … article for sitting in. (The PAGES restrain him.)

  Let … me … up. I see my ministers vertical … eye to eye two eye.

  PITT: He is only trying to stand. Your Majesty is only trying to stand. Please sit, sir.

  KING: No, no. (He goes on struggling.)

  PAPANDIEK: Sir?

  WILLIS: Very well.

  (The PAGES release the KING as he struggles to his feet.)

  KING: Mr Pitt … It is Mr Pitt, isn’t it?

  PITT: It is, sir.

  KING: I have to be careful because I have all the state secrets. They listen, you know. Shoo, shoo. The parson particularly. Get away, you old goat. Go back to Lincolnshire. My son … my son comes and looks at me. Spies on me through the door. I’ve heard him laughing.

  PITT: No, sir.

  KING: Oh yes, sir. There was something else I wanted to tell you. Yes. They have killed the Queen. Did you know that?

  PITT: No, sir.

  KING: You keep ery sad. We were very happy. Are you cold?

  PITT: It is chilly, saying ‘No, sir’. Yes, sir. You do not know the world, Mr Pitt. I am sad about the Queen. Vsir.

  KING: Not for me. I make the weather by means of mental powers … (To WILLIS) You know nothing. What do you know, you provincial fool? (From being weepy he is suddenly cheerful.) My son wants me locked up. He wants the government. It’s not too bad about the Queen, because I was actually never married to her. I was married to the tall one. Elizabeth. The old fool doesn’t know it, but she’s my real wife. The Queen’s a good woman, but she’s not a patch on Lady Pembroke.

  WILLIS: Leave that, sir. Leave it.

  KING: No, no. Leave us.

  (The PAGES are pulling him back to the chair.)

  This is government. This is affairs of state.

  WILLIS: It is nothing of the sort. It is filth.

  KING: See, Mr Pitt. They fling me about like a sack of barley.

  PITT: I will leave you, sir.

  KING: No, you will not. I have not said you could. You do not leave the King until you are dismissed.

  WILLIS: Mr Pitt may go. I say he may.

  (This breach of etiquette is about as big an affront to PITT as it is to the KING, and PITT swallows it with difficulty.)

  KING: I dismiss you. That is why you can go. But it is my say-so. Not his. Not his, Mr Pitt. Mine, do you hear? Dism-dismiss … miss … miss.

  (PITT moves out of the KING’s restricted eyeline.)

  PITT: Dr Willis. I came hoping for some alteration. What am I to tell Parliament? It is over a month since you took charge of His Majesty, and I can detect no improvement.

  WILLIS: It is there, I assure you.

  PITT: He is different, certainly, but no
better. Is there no other treatment? Is it … is it rigorous enough?

  WILLIS: Sir?

  PITT: You assured me you could cure him. WILLIS: I can. I can.

  PITT: Well, you had better hurry, because soon it will be too late. (PITT is going.)

  KING: (Shouting out) Mr Pitt. Do nothing, Mr Pitt. Not Fox. I am not mad, Mr Pitt. Your father was mad. I saw him. I saw your father. He wasn’t like me. You may go, Mr Pitt. I give you leave.

  (PITT goes. WILLIS comes and stands looking thoughtfully at the KING, who chunters to himself, but only half heard.)

  Whatever I think, the bells ring it, the dogs bark it, the birds sing it, the walls hear it. There are persons hiding in the walls, hiding in it now. They make me think thoughts I would not think, would not dream of thinking, would not think of dreaming, put them there, tormenting me, influencing my body, speaking the thought language …

  WILLIS: Fetch Greville and Fitzroy, and the other page – where is he?

  (PAPANDIEK goes.)

  BRAUN: Fortnum, sir? He has left, sir. Said it was too much like work, sir. Gone to start a provision merchant’s in Piccadilly, sir. (PAPANDIEK returns with FITZROY and GREVILLE. WILLIS motions all of them to line up in front of the KING.)

  WILLIS: I wish to remind Your Majesty, in the presence of your attendants, of your contract.

  KING: What contract? There is no contract. I am King of England. I signed no contract …

  (WILLIS perhaps holds his hat over the KING’s face, something to deflect his utterances, anyway.)

  KING: (As necessary) … but I am contracted. I am shrunk. I signed no contract but I am not as majestic as I deserve by reason of damage sustained, whereby my right to be free was abstracted and constrained and I was locked up in this cage- weather and hear myself constantly promenaded in your figures of speech …

  WILLIS: … Namely, if the King indulges in meaningless discourse, he will be restrained. If he struggles or strikes his attendants, he will be restrained. But if he indulges in filth or obscene talk, makes improper allegations against the Queen and Dr Willis … or entertains lascivious thoughts about Lady Pembroke, or any lady, then this is what you must do. (WILLIS suddenly gags the KING in full flow.)

  GREVILLE: No!

  FITZROY: (Unmoved) I will do no such thing.

  PAPANDIEK: Nor me.

  WILLIS: You will do it, because there is no more disrespect in it than turning off a tap. If this putrid discourse eased the King’s mind of its poisons, then no, one would not turn it off. But it is not like that. All men, even ministers of religion, nurture such thoughts, but they do not infect our talk, because discretion and decorum filter them out. It is that filter His Majesty refuses to operate, must learn to operate again. And until he does … and we must hope, Your Majesty, it is soon …