Expert: Mark Smith - 5/20/2010

Question
Hi Mark, A few months ago, we "spoke" about the book "Wicked Ernest." I managed to look at a copy and here's what it said about Ernest's son, George, and his blindness:
page 230: when George was 13 he became blind.
A few years earlier he had lost his right eye as a result, it was said, of “inflammation.” He seems to have inherited a weakness from Ernest. In September 1832 an illness affected the other eye.
Frederica wrote to Princess Lieven that she and Ernest were “plongés dans les plus vives inquiétudes.”
Over six weeks, George’s sight came and went uncertainly, then faded entirely.
The Duchesse of Dino gave a touching picture of the boy two years later: “A pleasant and handsome young man … without impatience, without regrets, without ill humour … Improvising on the piano is his chief amusement. His melodies are always sad and grave, but when he hears his mother’s steps he passes to a gay, animated theme.”
Hope this is helpful. A little puzzling that it doesn't say anything about an accident, as so many other sources do. Have you read "Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover" by Geoffrey Malden Willis? Do you know if it says anything about George's blindness? Thank you.

Answer
Hello Liz.
Thanks for that. It is puzzling that the details of his blindness should be shrouded in mystery.  A possibility is that it was caused in a fight or boisterous play with another child and was hushed up.
I've never heard of the book by Geoffrey Willis.
Mark