Royal Romances: Sex, Scandal, and Monarchy (14 page)

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likely that some of these letters are genuine. Robinson’s are denomi-

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nated and signed with her initials; the name “Perdita” appears only

in the title and references to the title, and the preface and intro-

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ductory biography refer to the writer of the letters as “Mrs. R—.”

Paula Byrne points to references to the Robinsons’ trips to Bristol

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and Wales in 1773 and observes that “details in the published letters

are so specific that it is impossible to suppose that the volume was

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merely a malicious fabrication” (32). She points out that Robinson

and Malden tried unsuccessfully to buy the originals back from King,

which suggests an awareness of the continuing damage they could

do, even after the publication of King’s pamphlet (138). An article

in January 1, 1811 number of
The Scourge
claims that the affair was

genuine but that the letters were largely forged as part of a blackmail

attempt.40

Based on their contemporary references, “Perdita’s” letters may

be Robinson’s with little alteration, but the “Israelite’s” letters have

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probably been heavily emended or written entirely for this volume.

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An 1800 pseudo-memoir purporting to be King’s claims that his

letters are fabrications, designed to enhance his image by a close,

and specifically sexualized, association with Robinson and to spice

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up the publication, if the blackmail attempt should fail.
Authentic

Memoirs, Memorandums, and Confessions. Taken from the Journal

of His Predatory Majesty, the King of the Swindlers
is a mixture of

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first person memoir and third person narrative, presented as King’s

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edited diary. The manuscript document was “left . . . on the seat of a

hackney coach,” found by “a lady,” and then passed on to the puta-

tive editor (v), who published the entries, “arrange[d] . . . (for the sake

of perspicuity) in a more connected order than they are presented

in the manuscript” (vii). Casting his interventions as supplementary

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narration for the purposes of clarification allows this editor to make

the persuasive gestures that are his real aim:

Many of the adventures, enterprizes and exploits that were recorded

in
scattered hints
, and
memorandums
by the King, are therefore stated

narratively: but he assures the reader that in such cases, he has neither

presumed to indulge his fancy,—to deviate from the
obvious
mean-

ing of the writer,—nor to paint him in livelier colours than he paints

himself. (vi)

Having assured his readers that they can trust equally his editorial

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and his narrative integrity, he offers the two types of narrative as

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seamlessly connected. He quotes “the King’s” story of having stum-

bled upon “ ‘this packet, containing my correspondence with the

PERDITA’ ” while “ ‘rummaging my repository of old papers’ ” (106)

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and then follows this with his account of King’s unsuccessful effort to

blackmail Robinson with the letters, which were mostly “fictitious”

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although interspersed, “to give the credit of authenticity to his pub-

lication” with “
some
, which she had actually written to him on pecu-

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niary business,
as her broker
” (110). The reason for the affair, which

was never consummated, is given in “the King’s” voice. The Prince

offered to subsidize his ten-month liaison with Robinson, on King’s

promise that he would then pass her on, but “ ‘availed himself of the

privilege of Royalty’ ” and seduced her first (107).

Authentic Memoirs, Memorandums, and Confessions
is an anti-

Semitic attack on a wealthy and influential Jewish radical, framed

as a rogue confession, and sheds no light on the authenticity of the

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Letters from Perdita
. The text gives no reason beyond implied eth-

nicity to believe that King’s interspersals are any less valid than the

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editor’s. Certainly, the replacement of King for Malden as pander

to the Prince has no basis in fact, because King’s association with

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Robinson predates the Florizel and Perdita affair by nearly a decade.

King’s renomination as “the King” both satirizes his overweening

ambition (there is an actual Prince in the narrative, but he is the only

King) and echoes the labeling of Robinson’s transformation from

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“Perdita” to “the Perdita”—from heroine to courtesan. It is the pan-

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der, however, and not the prostitute, who is rendered “odious and

despicable” by “endeavouring to convert her favours into an article of

trade” (108); his greed and his sexual inadequacy are both features of

his Jewishness.41

The editor and King both take liberties with their materials, justi-

fied in the interests of framing a coherent narrative of “true” events.

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C h r o n i c l e s o f F l o r i z e l a n d P e r d i t a

47

King’s is the more compact—like the Florizel and Perdita novels,

focused on a single episode.42 The climax of this narrative, however,

is not sexual culmination but refusal of a financial transaction and

the reestablishment (or the adjustment) of virtue. In the narrative of

Robinson’s letters alone, she offers the promise of sex in exchange for

a loan; King holds out for the sex without the loan, and loses. In the

interchange between her letters and King’s, his loss establishes his

virtue, when her crass self-marketing contrasts with his superior sen-

sibility and philosophy. Robinson’s letters introduce money matters:

She begins with a cautious generalization about true “Generosity,”

which consists in “bestowing [money] in proportion to the Merit and

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Condition of those who stand in need of our Assistance” (23). In case

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he chooses not to recognize the local relevance of these generaliza-

tions, she adds, “I shall depend on your Promise this Week, for I am

really distressed” (23). His reply combines moralizing with prescient

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admonitions: Her “immoderate Propensity to acquire,” he warns,

“will lead you to Indiscretion, and expose you to the destructive

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Stratagems of some libidinous Profligate.” He then slips into erotic

fantasy, which suggests where her immoderate desires ought more

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properly to be directed, “How I pant to be at
Bristol
, to accompany

you through the verdant Meads to the Side of some Silver Stream,

slow wandering in Meanders down the Glade, or to the cool Recess

of a shady Grove, where every Gale whispers Pleasure, Contentment

and Love!” (25). Throughout their exchanges, Robinson is steadfast

in linking the sexual nature of their relationship with the financial,

King steadfast in maintaining their dissociation. In another letter, his

declaration of love merges, once again, into erotic fantasy:

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[A]ll my Pleasures, all my Happiness concentre in you; entwined in

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those snowy Arms, reposed on thy panting Bosom, grateful to the

Senses as Fragrance, and more fair than Parian Marble, thy every

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Look animates my Soul; every Action indicates the mystick Meaning

of thy wanton Love, till my melting Senses are drowned in deli-

cious Transports, and that Elisium is realized, which superstitious

Mahometans but fancy. (33)

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He ends this letter with a wish to “retire” with her “to some rural

sequestered Spot,” claiming that he would “prefer the jocund Hours

of Love and Temperance, in an humble Cottage, to stately Mansions

and unsalutary Dainties” (34). Sex and frugality are naturally linked,

and avarice is the enemy of love. He follows this statement with a new

paragraph, not quite a postscript, but separated by uncharacteristic

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white space: “You little Prodigal, you have spent 200L in Six Weeks:

I will not answer your Drafts” (34).

This insistence on separating their sexual relationship from the

financial might be original to King’s letters. Robinson’s next letter

contains another request for a loan, but the tone is distant enough

to suggest both disappointment at his earlier refusal and resistance

to his erotic overtures. It is also more wifely: “that stupid Thing,

R—” whom, in an earlier letter she could not love (26) becomes “my

dear Mr. R—” (35). But King’s bewilderment at the “cold indifferent

Style” (37) of her letter (“How have I offended?” he asks) is so disin-

genuous as to suggest contrivance. His inability to make sense of her

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behavior means it is not
he
who understands their affair as a financial

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transaction, while his naïve denials reveal the sordid and corrupting

greed behind her pretended “youthful” ardor:

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Avidity of Wealth and Sordidness of Temper seldom infect the youthful

Mind; they grow in the venal Souls of Age and Decripitude [sic]; and

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such is human Depravity, that we are more eager to acquire, as we are

less swayed by Temptation. The avaricious Wretch, whose
Taste
is
viti-

ated
, hoards up the Wealth to rust in mouldy Coffers, which his nig-

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gard Soul cannot enjoy
;
but the
untainted Breast
, warm in Dissipation

and Youth, cannot harbour such a
Selfish mercenary
Disposition: Why

then this
inordinate
Desire of Money? Your letters are unremitting

Series of Drafts on me; my Inability to satisfy them cannot be the

Motive of
this Strange Transition
. (37–38)

While seeming careful to establish a contrast between Robinson’s sex-

uality (the source of her desirability) and financial greed, King con-

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nects them. It is “seldom” that youthful sensuality (the “
untainted

Breast
, warm in Dissipation”) is aligned with “Depravity.” It “can-

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not” be happening here. And yet only Robinson, whose letters “are

unremitting Series of Drafts,” can be the “Avaricious Wretch” in

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whom desire for wealth is her one remaining sin. The moral economy

in the passage is consistent with the tone of King’s letters, in privi-

leging sexual pleasure as a kind of sentimental moral ideal: young

lovers alone in a rural cottage. “Dissipation” is distinct from—is even

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opposed to—“Depravity.” The one is warm and untainted, the other

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niggardly and vitiated. In associating sexual license with youthful

innocence, King evokes the pastoral source of Robinson’s courtesan

identity, but only to expose its irony. Her professed sexuality is a cover

for her greed. The wanton is really the avaricious wretch with vitiated

taste; the money-lender is the true man of feeling. All this time, she

has been faking it.

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C h r o n i c l e s o f F l o r i z e l a n d P e r d i t a