clined to play any longer the _role_ of "virtuous
mistress" in an obscure French town, when she ought, as a Princess of
the Blood Royal, to be circling in splendour and state around the
throne.

Between his wife's tears and tantrums on one side of the Channel and the
Royal anger on the other, the Duke was driven to the extremity of his
exiguous Royal wits; until finally, in sheer desperation, he decided to
make the plunge--to break the news to the King. Had he but known how
inopportune the time was he would surely have taken the first boat back
to Calais rather than face his brother's anger. George was distracted by
trouble at home and abroad. His mother was dying; across the Atlantic
the clouds of war were massing; the political atmosphere was charged
with danger and unrest. And when the quaking Duke presented himself
before his brother as he was moodily walking in his palace garden,
George was in no mood to accept quietly any addition to his burden of
worries.

No sooner had the King read the ill-spelled, clumsily-worded note which
the Duke shamefacedly placed in his hand than his anger blazed into
flame. "You idiot! You blockhead! You villain!" he shouted, purple in
face and hoarse with passion. "I tell you that woman shall never be a
Royal Duchess--she shall never be anything." "What must I do, then?"
gasped the Duke, quailing before the Royal outburst. "Go abroad until I
can decide what to do," thundered the King, waving his brother
imperiously away.

It was a very crestfallen Duke who returned to Calais to face the
upbraiding of Duchess Anne on his failure. But it took much more than
this to cow a Luttrell. She at least was not afraid of any king. She
would defy him to his face, and compel him to acknowledge her--before
her child was born. And within a few weeks she was installed at
Cumberland House, with all the state and more than the airs of a Royal
Princess. The days of concealment were over; she stood avowed to the
world, Duchess of Cumberland and sister-in-law to the King; and she only
smiled when George, in his Royal wrath at such insolence, announced
through his Chamberlain that "there was no road between Cumberland House
and Windsor Castle--that the Castle doors would be closed against any
who dared to visit his repudiated sister-in-law."

There were some, however, who dared to brave George's displeasure by
paying court to the Duchess, whose beauty and grace surrounded her with
a small body of admire