INT. WESTMINSTER. A DOOR. DAY.

A hand (the sleeve military, the hand gloved) knocks tentatively on the worn wood.

INT. WESTMINSTER. ANTEROOM. DAY.

Opening, the door discloses a royal waiting room. Robed and crowned, but settled comfortably among her children, is the Queen, Queen Charlotte. A middle-aged, plain-spoken woman (German but not in a governessy way), the Queen is attended by her Mistress of Robes, the Countess of Pembroke, tall, beautiful, alert. The Queen beckons to Amelia, her daughter of four years old, and licks her handkerchief to wipe a smut off the child’s face. Too old for her to wipe anything off his face (except the smile) is the Queen’s eldest Son, George, Prince of Wales. Now twenty-six, the Prince of Wiles is beginning to lose his looks through drink, hanging about and the usual difficulties associated with being heir to the throne, the job specification for which would have to include the ability to kick your heels for half a lifetime. With the Prince is his younger brother Frederick, Duke of York, a silly boy, with a startled wig but no malice in him at all. Both are in full ceremonial rig. Heedless of these lustrous personages and their royalty, pages and equerries bustle in and out, somewhere we do not yet see, robing His Majesty. Busy, busy, busy, except that the tentative opening of the door by an attractive young man briefly halts the proceedings. Queen, princes, pages, royal retainers, all pause and take him in. Bowing, the young man comes into the room; he might be Alice walking through the Looking-Glass.

LADY PEMBROKE   (whispering to the Queen) Captain Greville, ma’am. His Majesty’s new equerry.
The Queen acknowledges Greville. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, his younger brother, are standing, bored, to one side.