The King was living at the Queen’s House—more formally Buckingham House—with Queen Charlotte and their thirteen children, including Prince William, who had just been born. (Good God, North asked himself. Would there soon be even more children?) While the palace was officially at St. James, the King was often at home at Buckingham. North had no appointment for an audience—the first time he had ever arrived to see the King without one—but he wanted to lose no time, lest the rumour, which he was sure was already winging its way to London, reach the King before he did. The risk was real because the King had informants everywhere.
On arriving at Buckingham House by carriage, he bid his coachmen to wait. As he got out, he noted that the King’s colours were flying on the flagpole over the House, which meant the King was in residence.
He climbed down from his carriage and approached the guard booth, which was staffed by two royal marines with fixed bayonets. An army major was also present.
“Good afternoon, Major,” North said. “I am Lord North, the First Minister, here to see the King on a most urgent matter.”
The man actually reared back slightly, so surprised was he to see the First Minister at the gate. Recovering, he peered hard at North, clearly trying to determine if the gentleman standing in front of him was truly the First Minister or just a lunatic. After a moment, he said, “How am I to tell if you are really Lord North?”
North gestured at his highly polished carriage, still standing only a few steps away, with four horses, two liveried coachmen in front and a soldier standing guard on the running board. The major looked, clearly taking in all of that plus the Royal Arms—the crown with rampant lion and standing, chained unicorn—emblazoned on the side of the carriage.
“What beggar or fool do you think arrives in that?” North asked.
“All right, I will enquire. Please wait.”
North paced up and down for a few minutes, but it was not long before some pedestrians seemed to become aware of him and his carriage and began pointing at him and edging closer. He was rescued by the return of the major. “The King’s equerry, who happens to be here, too, will see you and vouch for you—if that is possible.” He left unsaid what would happen if he could not be vouched for, but North imagined that it would not be good.
Fortunately, he had met and dealt with the King’s equerry many times. They met in a courtyard beyond the guard gate. The equerry, Lord Salisbury, looked at first startled, then said, “It is indeed you, North. I take it you do not have an appointment with His Majesty.”
“No, I do not. I have never before come to see the King in this fashion, but I have news for him of the utmost urgency.”
“It is most irregular, but I will enquire if he will grant you an audience on such short notice. May I tell him whether this news is good or bad?”
“Good. Excellent, in fact.”
Lord Salisbury led him to an anteroom, where he waited, trying to think how best to put the whole matter to the King, whom he had kept in the dark about the whole project. And now, by coming to the Queen’s House without court dress, and without an appointment, he was breaching every protocol. He had, in fact, been to the Queen’s House only one other time, when the King, the year before, had invited the cabinet on the spur of the moment to join him for a meeting in his private library.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, he was led in to see the King in that very same library. He was sitting in a large chair at the head of the table, dandling his newborn son on his lap and making cooing noises. Upon seeing North, he passed the baby to a nearby maid, who whisked the child out of the room. With a hand gesture, he dismissed three other servants, who backed out of the room and closed the door quietly behind them.
“This is most unusual, my Lord. Unheard of, even. What brings you here so informally, without court dress, and with no appointment for an audience or even an hour’s notice?” He frowned.
North, standing in front of him, but a respectable distance back, bowed and said, “Good afternoon, Your Majesty. I apologize for so informal an appearance, but I wanted you to hear the good news from your First Minister before you might hear it from the street.”
“The Americans have surrendered all of their armies? That horrible man John Adams has died of the pox?” The King laughed uproariously.
“No, Sire. The news is that George Washington has been captured.”
“What, what? Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“Where is he? In New York in Clinton’s hands? Or did Cornwallis seize him down in the South, where I hear our campaign is going well.”
“Neither. He is just arrived here.”
“What? Here in London?” A broad smile lit his face from one side to the other and North felt his own face light up in response. The King, albeit only forty-two, had recently, in North’s view, begun on his face to show the cares of the monarchy, despite the recent victories against the Americans.
“No, Sire. He is aboard one of your ships in the harbour at Portsmouth, but I have ordered him transported to one of the prison hulks in the Thames, under guard by two marine detachments.”
“Why not to Newgate?”
“Newgate, like the Clink, was destroyed by the mobs last June. And none of the remaining prisons is convenient. Besides, a prison hulk should frighten him and he can be moved someplace better in exchange for concessions.”
“Can we not just hang the traitor there in Portsmouth, on the spot? I can travel there easily.”
He knew the King was joking since during the last year or two he had evinced great interest in the laws of war as they applied to prisoners captured by both sides during the conflict. He thus was no doubt aware of the legal process to be followed.
“No, Sire. He must be brought here to London for trial, probably at the Old Bailey. We will need to notify the prosecutor and begin the process.”
“He will be charged with high treason, I assume. And with his guilt so obvious, the trial for high treason will just be a formality, correct? How long will it take before we can watch him swing? I have never attended a public hanging, but there is always a first time.”
“Sire, it will take some time. It is important to make the process look fair. All the world will be watching.”
“True, true.”
“There is also his defence to be considered.”
“What defence can there be?”
“He will contend that he cannot be criminally prosecuted. That he is a prisoner of war, and that under the laws of war, he must be released at the end of hostilities or exchanged for another prisoner. Unless he has committed an actual crime, such as murder. Of which there is no evidence here.”
“The laws of war be damned! I want him executed. That is, after all, what they did to poor Major Andre.”
“Yes, they did. But the claim was that he was captured behind their lines out of uniform so he was no better than a spy.”
The King rose from his chair, which North had never seen him do before during an audience with him, and began to pace, hands clasped behind his back.
“Let me ask you this, First Minister. These Americans are not a country. They are our colonies, and colonies I have formally proclaimed to be in a state of rebellion, is that not right?”
“Yes, you did that in 1775 as to at least some colonies.”
“And so why should we recognize their army as anything other than a band of rebels, who are not subject to the laws of war? Were the rioters who burned Newgate and the Clink this past June an army entitled to plead the laws of war in their defence?”
“No. But as applied to the rebels in the colonies, that is an excellent question, Sire. But one reason to apply them, surely, is that we want our own soldiers treated fairly. If we ignore the laws of war, the rebels may have excuse to do so, too. We have tens of thousands of men in the colonies, and hundreds are already prisoners of the Americans.”
“Very well. But you now know my wishes. You are a clever man, and I’m sure you will figure out how to carry them out.”
North did not want to engage the King in a pointless debate about who had what powers. The King was well aware that the Parliament made the laws in the name of the King, and that the monarch could either sign them or abdicate. And the King was also well aware that the government carried out those laws, albeit always in the King’s name, without much regard as to how he wished them carried out. And so North tried to distract him with some details, which the King was usually interested in pursuing.
“Sire, do you wish to know how the capture was carried out?”
“Of course. I was distracted from that by the fact of the capture, but I am most anxious to learn the details. Was it Clinton’s men who captured him? Or Cornwallis’s?”
“Neither. I sent a special agent, a Colonel Black, to seize him at his headquarters and bring him back here, outside the normal military chain of command.”
“I am very pleased. But why not have him taken to New York?”
“I feared that if he were captured by our forces, bringing him back here might prove difficult and, with the time it takes to communicate back and forth, that General Clinton, who is still very angered by the hanging of his young aide Major Andre, might find an excuse to hang Washington himself in New York, thus taking away his true value.”
“What true value?”
“To use as a bargaining chip to bring the rebellion to a quick and satisfactory end.”
The King was silent for a moment. “I see. Well, I would prefer to hang him even if that causes the rebellion to last a little longer, frankly. And in any case, as you know, I don’t believe the rebels will ever settle. They will settle only for their independence unless our fist smashes them.”
“I understand, Sire.”
“Was this your personal doing?”
“Yes, Sire, it was.”
“My heartiest congratulations, then. Did you involve Lord Germain in it?”
“No.”
The King stroked his chin. “I see. Well, perhaps leaving him out made sense.”
“With your permission, Sire, I need to go and arrange for him to be taken to one of the prison hulks.”
“I think he should go instead to the Tower,” the King said.
“Why, Sire? The Tower is no longer fully a prison, and it will be too easy for him to escape from there, even if he is very closely held there, as Henry Laurens is.”
“The Tower is where, for centuries, important traitors have been imprisoned before their execution.”
“The highborn and titled government officials have been executed there. Not commoners.”
“I don’t know if that’s true, but I nevertheless want to see him in the Tower. The thought pleases me somehow. Be sure to put him in a room where he can see the stone on which Anne Boleyn lost her head. And let the Governor and Warder of the Tower know that the General is to be made aware of its use.”
“Of course, Sire.” North had, in fact, no idea if anyone knew where the stone was on which the Queen had been beheaded, if it even still existed. Or was it a block of wood? The King was far from crazy, but the conversation was rapidly descending into farce. North tried again to reason with him. “Sire, it has been over thirty years since anyone was beheaded. And, again, it’s a fate traditionally reserved for the highborn. It is a death that confers prestige.”
“Washington’s head on a pike on London Bridge might make it worthwhile to find an exception to that tradition.”
North didn’t think it worthwhile to remind the King that he wasn’t Henry VIII and that, as a monarch with limited powers, he couldn’t make that kind of thing happen. Or could he?