GEORGE III. A.D. 1785--1810.
The chief sorrow of George III. was that his eldest sons were wild,
disobedient young men. George, Prince of Wales, especially, was very
handsome, and extremely proud of his own beauty. He was called the
First Gentleman in Europe, and set the fashion in every matter of
taste; but he spent and wasted money to a shameful amount, and was
full of bad habits; besides which, he used to set himself in every
way in his power to vex and contradict his father and mother, whom
he despised for their plain simple ways and their love of duty.
The next two brothers--Frederick, Duke of York, and William, Duke
of Clarence--had also very bad habits; but they went astray from
carelessness, and did not wilfully oppose their father, like their
eldest brother.
William Pitt, son of Lord Chatham, was Prime Minister. He thought
that the Roman Catholics in England ought to have the same rights as
the king's other subjects, and not be hindered from being members of
Parliament, judges, or, indeed, from holding any office, and he wanted
to bring a bill into Parliament for this purpose. But the king thought
that for him to consent would be contrary to the oath he had sworn
when he was crowned, and which had been drawn up when William of
Orange came over. Nothing would make George III. break his word, and
he remained firm, though he was so harassed and distressed that he
fell ill, and lost the use of his reason for a time. There were
questions whether the regency--that is, the right to act as king--
should be given to the son, who, though his heir, was so unlike him,
when he recovered; and there was a great day of joy throughout the
nation, when he went in state to St. Paul's Cathedral to return thanks.
In the meantime, terrible troubles were going on in France. Neither
the kings nor nobles had, for ages past, any notion of their proper
duties to people under them, but had ground them down so hard that at
last they could bear it no longer; and there was a great rising up
throughout the country, which is known as the French Revolution. The
king who was then reigning was a good and kind man, Louis XVI., who
would gladly have put things in better order; but he was not as wise
or firm as he was good, and the people hated him for the evil doings
of his forefathers. So, while he was trying to make up his mind what
to do, the power was taken out of his hands, and he, with his wife,
sister, and two children, were shut up in prison. An evil spirit
came into the people, and made them believe that the only way to keep
themselves free would be to get rid of all who had been great people
in the former days. So they set up a machine for cutting off heads,
called the guillotine, and there, day after day, nobles and priests,
gentlemen and ladies--even the king, queen, and princess, were brought
and slain. The two children were not guillotined, but the poor little
boy, only nine years old, was worse off than if he had been, for the
cruel wretches who kept him called him the wolf-cub, and said he was
to be got rid of, and they kept him alone in a dark, dirty room, and
used him so ill that he pined to death. Many French gentry and
clergymen fled to England, and there were kindly treated and helped
to live; and the king's brother, now the rightful king himself, found
a home there too.
At last the French grew weary of this horrible bloodshed; but, as they
could not manage themselves, a soldier named Napoleon Bonaparte, by
his great cleverness and the victories he gained over other nations,
succeeded in getting all the power. His victories were wonderful. He
beat the Germans, the Italians, the Russians, and conquered wherever
he went. There was only one nation he never could beat, and that was
the English; though he very much wanted to have come over here with a
great fleet and army, and have conquered our island. All over England
people got ready. All the men learnt something of how to be soldiers,
and made themselves into regiments of volunteers; and careful watch
was kept against the quantities of flat-bottomed boats that Bonaparte
had made ready to bring his troops across the English Channel. But no
one had ships and sailors like the English; and, besides, they had the
greatest sea-captain who ever lived, whose name was Horatio Nelson.
When the French went under Napoleon to try to conquer Egypt and all
the East, Nelson went after them with his ships, and beat the whole
French fleet, though it was a great deal larger than his own, at the
mouth of the Nile, blowing up the Admiral's ship, and taking or
burning many more. Afterward, when the King of Denmark was being made
to take part against England, Nelson's fleet sailed to Copenhagen,
fought a sharp battle, and took all the Danish ships. And lastly,
when Spain had made friends with France, and both their fleets had
joined together against England, Lord Nelson fought them both off
Cape Trafalgar, and gained the greatest of all his victories; but it
was his last, for a Frenchman on the mast-head shot him through the
backbone, and he died the same night. No one should ever forget the
order he gave to all his sailors in all the ships before the battle--
"England expects every man to do his duty."
After the battle of Trafalgar the sea was cleared of the enemy's
ships, and there was no more talk of invading England. Indeed, though
Bonaparte overran nearly all the Continent of Europe, the smallest
strip of sea was enough to stop him, for his ships could not stand
before the English ones.
All this time English affairs were managed by Mr. Pitt, Lord Chatham's
son; but he died the very same year as Lord Nelson was killed, 1805,
and then his great rival, Mr. Fox, was minister in his stead: but he,
too, died very soon, and affairs were managed by less clever men, but
who were able to go on in the line that Pitt had marked out for them:
and that was, of standing up with all their might against Bonaparte--
though he now called himself the Emperor, Napoleon I., and was treading
down every country in Europe.
The war time was a hard one at home in England, for everything was
very dear and the taxes were high; but everyone felt that the only
way to keep the French away was to go on fighting with them, and
trying to help the people in the countries they seized upon. So the
whole country stood up bravely against them.
Sad trouble came on the good old king in his later years. He lost his
sight, and, about the same time, died his youngest child, the Princess
Amelia, of whom he was very fond. His grief clouded his mind again,
and there was no recovery this time. He was shut up in some rooms at
Windsor Castle, where he had music to amuse him, and his good wife,
Queen Charlotte, watched over him carefully as long as she lived.