Free Dislocated to Success by Iain Bowen Page A

blunt, especially when the cis-staff were out of sympathy with the trans-power. As some American once put it, once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds shall surely follow. What surprised me was how well he got on with the PM; of course, in some ways, they were quite similar despite the march of the ages. Both declared themselves capable of doing business with each other in public; in private, both respected but had reservations about each other.
     
    The Cardinal returned to France with a good deal more information than he had previously, and from then on proved to be a good friend to Britain, but always kept the interest of France to the fore. It was to prove a lengthy relationship, although there were times when his power was somewhat diminished by the actions of some of the magnates. I don’t believe he ever liked us, nor got fully used to modern thinking - despite his founding of the Auto Club de France - but there was a strong feeling of mutual trust between himself and Mrs Thatcher.
     
    No sooner had one VIP departed than another arrived; the Elector of Hannover. I was not involved in this originally, but was dragged in as the Irish situation made David’s position untenable. The position of Frederick Lewis of Hannover was a rather difficult one; whilst we all know him as a modernising Prince who happens to be a bit of a playboy, and whilst he has become quite popular with the British public, he was deeply affected by the Dislocation. Effectively, he lost his entire family - except for a few cousins in Prussia and cadet lines in some of the smaller Braunschweig statelets. He was in an electorate which he was not that familiar with and with a ruling coterie who had been used to exercising power on their own. He was in an unfamiliar situation, off balance and - as one Nottinghamshire MP put it - “A bit mardy”.
     
    We were helped in that he accepted that he could not - nor did he want to - be King of the United Kingdom, and he was really not very keen on being King of Ireland; it seemed he had visited once and had not been impressed. I was told his language was rather salty about the place; this was actually in one way quite helpful to us as it was becoming apparent that we needed Ireland - or at least its agricultural potential - quite badly, but there was certainly a group around Willie who felt that a trans-sovereign in close association was what it needed.  The interesting thing is that now, fifteen years later, he is the fourth most popular member of the Royal family; and if - by some mischance - he did inherit, it would probably be initially accepted by the people - though the politicians would hate it, due to his tendency to be rather more hands-on than other members of The Firm.
     
    So there had to be a settlement - and a fairly generous one at that - and this needed to be sorted out before the new Act of Succession came into place. Luckily, Frederick was broke, as was his electorate, and therefore he was very willing to listen to the idea of a settlement. This took some time to negotiate, but once the principle was there everyone breathed a lot easier. The majority of the settlement in terms of the annual payment came from the Royal Family, but there was a substantial one-off payment made mainly by the Government in return for the nationalisation of most Crown-held Irish land, which was eventually redistributed to its tenants under a form of Right to Buy. As Quintin said, if some of the sharper lawyers had got hold of him it could have cost both the UK and the Royal Family billions.  As it was, he had a sound financial future with a solid annual income - which proved to be much needed, because he did like spending.
     
    It was during the elector’s visit that all hell broke loose. I have mercifully never had the pleasure of the political Siberia that is Northern Ireland, so I was not as well versed as many colleagues in the matter, but towards the end of April Spanish ships landed