National theatre, where the King and Queen and their children
(the Drones of the Nation according to Cobbett) mingled with the masses. It was unquestionably a golden age in the English theatre and now Dora was at the very heart of it. She was the actress no one wanted to miss. Jordan mania gripped the town. Romney, who charged 80 guineas a portrait, painted her for nothing. Her first benefit brought in £200. The hard-nosed members of Brooks's (Sheridan, Fox, the Prince of Wales) gave her a purse of £300. Sheridan, who was running the theatre at the time, was as `afraid as a Mouse of a Cat' when negotiat- ing her contract. She ignored the satirists, replied astringently to press innuendo and wrote her own songs including, of all things, The Blue Bell of Scotland.
The Duke of Clarence was another gam- ble in her life, although after 20 harmo- nious years she might justifiably have imagined the odds getting shorter. After she produced their last child at the age of 45, the Duke insisted on no more London appearances. But she continued to delight the provinces and would write to him, not altogether convincingly, 'I am thoroughly tired of my profession' . . . `Oh my God, how I do long to return home,' and from Bath, in the year of their separation, 'I am a better actress at this moment than I ever was.' Perhaps, he simply got tired of sitting at home, waiting for her to return.
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