12.
Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle
by
R.E. Prindle
George W. M. Reynolds And The Family Of
George III
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| George III |
In 1848 Reynolds
buttoned up his first masterwork, Mysteries Of London (all four series) to
begin his second, The Mysteries of the Court of London that attacked and
excoriated George III and his family.
While the
first two series of Mysteries of London are well known and read by aficionados,
there follows the nearly unknown series three and four. The first two series were apparently finished
by 1846. III and IV continued to
1848. Then began The Mysteries of the
Court of London that ran from 1848 to 1856.
This also was a four series story with the well known first two series
probably finished by 1852. Once again
the first two series are well known while dense obscurity envelopes the third
and fourth series titled The Crimes of Lady Saxondale and The Fortunes of the
Ashtons. Tracking the latter two series
down I found that they were published under Reynolds’ name by John Dicks which were numbered
eleven through twenty so they are authentic continuations. However, the writing is inferior to that of
Reynolds so the my guess is that he plotted out the stories and hired other
writers to flesh them out much as the Frenchman Alexander Dumas did with many
of his novels. However the last ten
novels were apparently not well received as few people have heard of them today
even though a full set of the Oxford/Burton Society editions contain all four
series only the first two seem to be available.
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| George IV |
Be that as
it may Reynolds noted at the end of the second series that he was ending his ‘history’
of George IV with the end of the Regency.
He declined to follow the career of George into his Monarchy. Of course, the first two series excoriate
George IV but Reynolds also investigates certain scandals involving of George
III and separately of two of his daughters, Sophie and Amelie. George III and his wife Charlotte produced a
startling fifteen progeny.
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| Beau Brummell |
The first
two series of Court concerning the family of George III are fairly accurate
history allowing for fictional liberties.
For surer accuracy one would have to read academic histories. George III before his coronation had an
affair with a woman called Hannah Lightfoot whom he married in a confidential
ceremony. This caused a problem when it
came time for George to perform a royal marriage with the fecund Charlotte.
Reynolds
combines the story of George III and Hannah Lightfoot around the adventures of
George IV’s buddy, the great Dandy George ‘Beau’ Brummell whom he calls Tim Meagles.
Beau
Brummell was a great celebrity in his day setting the tone for male sartorial
fashions. He became a very close friend
of George IV even having apartments in Carlton House, George IV’s palatial dwelling. The relationship lasted for a few years until
the Beau’s vanity got the best of him irritating George IV who cut him. The Beau went off the rails and crashed while
in the novel Reynolds characterization of him, Tim Meagles, manages a successful
exit from life at George IV’s court.
Meagles manages to acquire some papers proving George III’s marriage to Hannah
Lightfoot. Using this information he was
able to extort a bundle and a title for which he had always longed. This was the exact opposite of what happened
to the Beau. After his parting from the Prince the Beau squandered the small fortune he had inherited and broke and in debt removed to Calais in France where he lived in impoverishment conning old friends passing through for 'loans.' Interestingly both George
IV and Beau could pass as twins judging from the pictures.
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| The Princess Sophia |
Reynolds may
not have been able to begin his novel in 1848 because as the year dawned George
IV’s sister the Princess Sophia was still alive and he might have been
subjected to slander laws. Princess Sophia then died in April of 1848 at the
age of seventy. Telling her story so
close to her death was scandalous enough and generated some hard feeling toward
him among the aristocracy. But George
was a revolutionary so what cared he. He
actually hoped that the European revolution of 1848 would sweep away the crown
and the aristocracy as it did in France. Needless to say, while he played a prominent part, he was disappointed in the results.
The daughters
of George III, five in number, led fairly tragic lives deserving some sympathy. They were given no freedom by their father
and mother tightly tied to their apron strings, not allowed to live anything
approaching a normal life.
Sophia then,
starved for a love life, at the age of twenty-three fell in love with her
equerry and probably had a child by him, almost if not actually a certainty. At least a man claiming to be her son plagued
her into her grave. In later life she
was exploited by another lover. Quite a
tragic story worthy of a movie. Reynolds
rather cruelly exploited the dead Sophia in Court of London beginning the first
series with a carriage crash carrying a pregnant Sophia.
The second daughter
he held up to shame was Amelie who was supposed to have had an illegitimate child
also and that very tragic story Reynolds connects with the Monster Man who earned
his name by desecrating the dead of London’s graveyards. In her case the Monster Man who hates the
royal family contrives to steal Amelie’s baby turning him over to criminals to
be brought up to the most vile criminal habits.
In her later
life Amelie has her brother George track her son down. He employs the chief of the Bow Street Runners,
Reynolds’ master detective Larry Sampson, to do the leg work. Sampson found him as a teenager in the hands
of London’s worst criminal, doubling as a barber, obviously based on Sweeney
Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
One wonder’s
if Reynolds had read Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder In The Rue Morgue. Poe was something of a sensation in England
and Europe during his lifetime so it seems likely Reynolds did.
Sampson’s methods are more empirical than Poe’s C.A. Dupin whose
forte was mental lucubrations. There
does seem to be a reflection of Poe in Larry Sampson.
Having found
the lad, Sampson gives him a trial to see if he could go straight but his early
education was so strong that it was impossible.
Still Amelie longed to see him so her brother George arranges a slight
meeting. The boy was then shipped off to
England and Europe’s dumping ground, the former colonies in America.
So, George Reynolds, ironically named after the
Georgian kings, slanders the daylights out of George III and his family,
perhaps one of the most brutal and extended attacks in history. It is understandable that he was looked at
askance by the royalty and the aristocracy along with their dependents. Still, George William McArthur Reynolds wrote
one hell of a story. |
| George William McArthur Reynolds |
They don't know I'm here.
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