The King strides briskly out of the robing room and, collecting the Queen en route, heads the procession round the cloisters. The royal couple are preceded by an ancient sword-bearer, walking (or rather stumbling) backwards as etiquette demands, and they are followed, practically at a run, by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York and the rest of the court. This is not royalty in its processing as we know it today – stately, ordered, a performance as well as a progress. This is a rout, a scramble almost, and leading the scramble the King. And though this isn’t a Sunday run-out in the car with the parents in the front and the children at the back, what better place is there for a quarrel?

KING   The son is so … unwholesome.

QUEEN   He is fatter. Always fatter.

KING   Fatter because he is not doing, what, what? Do you know England, sir?

PRINCE OF WALES   I think so, sir.

KING   You know Brighton, Bath – yes, but do you know its mills and manufactories? Do you know its farms? Because I do. Do you know what they call me?

PRINCE OF WALES   What do they call you, sir?

KING   Farmer George. Do you know what that is?

PRINCE OF WALES   Impertinence, sir?

KING   No, sir. Love.

QUEEN   Affection.

KING   It is admiration, sir. You ought to marry, sir. Settle down.

QUEEN   Yes, grow up.

KING   A good plain woman. That’s what you want.
The Queen makes the best of this.
Then the people will love you, sir, as they love me. It is not good, this idleness. That is why you are getting fat, sir. Do not be fat, sir. Fight it! Fight it! Stop!
The procession stumbles to a halt.
Now. Who’s got that blasted speech?

THURLOW   Here, sir.

KING   Lord Chancellor. (to Queen) Ready?

QUEEN   (wearily) Yes.

KING   Come on. Let’s get it over with.
The procession swings round out of vision, up the stairs to the House of Lords.

INT. WESTMINSTER. HOUSE OF COMMONS. DAY.

The House is crammed with MPs. Black Rod approaches the Speaker’s chair.

BLACK ROD   The King commands the members of this Honourable House to attend His Majesty in the House of Peers.
The Speaker leads the MPs out of the House, Pitt, the Prime Minister, paired with Fox, the Leader of the Opposition. A rabble of MPs follows, many of them less respectable than their successors today and certainly less formal. Some wear hats, some don’t, and others look like farmers at a cattle market.

INT. WESTMINSTER. LOBBY TO HOUSE OF COMMONS. DAY.

The MPs make their way through the Lobby towards the House of Lords. Fox, genial and loose-living, tries to make conversation with his opposite number, who is young, glacial and quite without humour.

FOX   Do you enjoy all this flummery, Mr Pitt?

PITT   No, Mr Fox.

FOX   Do you enjoy anything, Mr Pitt?