For a time the outcast Princess, with her infant daughter, led a retired life amid the peace and beauty of Blackheath, where she lived as simply as any bourgeoise, playing the “lady bountiful” to the poor among her neighbours.  Her chief pleasure seems to have been to surround herself with cottage babies, converting Montague House into a “positive nursery, littered up with cradles, swaddling-bands, feeding bottles, and other things of the kind.”

But even to this rustic retirement watchful eyes and slanderous tongues followed her; and it was not long before stories were passing from mouth to mouth in the Court of strange doings at Blackheath.  The Princess, it was said, had become very intimate with Sir John Douglas and his lady, her near neighbours, and more especially with Sydney Smith, a good-looking naval captain, who shared the Douglas home, a man, moreover, with whom she had had suspicious relations at her father’s Court many years earlier.  It was rumoured that Captain Smith was a frequent and too welcome guest at Montague House, at hours when discreet ladies are not in the habit of receiving their male friends.  Nor was the handsome captain the only friend thus unconventionally entertained.  There was another good-looking naval officer, a Captain Manby, and also Sir Thomas Lawrence, the famous painter, both of whom were admitted to a suspicious intimacy with the Princess of Wales.

These rumours, sufficiently disquieting in themselves, were followed by stories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously to swell the numbers of the Princess’s proteges of the creche.  Even King George, whose sympathy with his heir’s ill-used wife was a matter of common knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this.  It must be investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of his family’s honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointed to examine into the matter and ascertain the truth.

The inquiry—­the “Delicate Investigation” as it was appropriately called—­opened in June, 1806, and witness after witness, from the Douglases to Robert Bidgood, a groom, gave evidence which more or less supported the charges of infidelity and concealment.  The result of the investigation, however, was a verdict of acquittal, the Commissioners reporting that the Princess, although innocent, had been guilty of very indiscreet conduct—­and this verdict the Privy Council confirmed.

For the Princess it was a triumphant vindication, which was hailed with acclamation throughout the country.  Even the Royal family showed their satisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, from the King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted his sister-in-law on a visit to the Court.

But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end.  The Princess returned to London, and found a more suitable home in Kensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry of that of her husband at Carlton House.  Here she was subjected to every affront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity of hatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, her daughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recognise her when their carriages passed in the street or park.