GEORGE IV.—1820 to 1830.
How it was this King ruled the kingdom before his father died; how
some bad men planned to kill the King’s ministers; how the Princess
Charlotte died; how the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino; how
the Roman Catholics were admitted into Parliament; and what useful
things were done in this reign.
When George the Fourth came to the throne, he was fifty-eight years
old, but he had been governing the kingdom for eight years before he
was king, during which time he had been called the Prince Regent. The
reason of this was, that the old king, who, as you read in the last
chapter, had the misfortune to go out of his mind, never recovered
his reason from the time his youngest daughter, the Princess Amelia,
died, at least not sufficiently to be able to govern; so George,
Prince of Wales, being the heir to the throne, governed for his
father all that time.
George the Fourth had no sooner begun his reign than a dreadful plot
was formed to kill all the cabinet ministers. The wicked men—about
thirty, I believe—who contrived this plot, used to meet at a house
in an out-of-the-way place called Cato Street, in the Edgware Road;
and there they agreed to carry out their plan on a certain day, when
the ministers were all expected to meet together and dine at Lord
Harrowby’s house. Fortunately the plot was betrayed by one of the
men, in time to prevent the murder: most of the conspirators were
seized, and Thistlewood and four other ringleaders were hanged. This
plot afterwards went by the name of the “Cato Street Conspiracy.”
About twenty-five years before George the Fourth came to the throne,
he had married his cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The
marriage was not a happy one, and the Prince and Princess of Wales
separated soon after the birth of their first and only child, the
Princess Charlotte. This led to a sad quarrel, which I think it is no
use for us to remember.
The Princess Charlotte, who would have succeeded her father on
the throne if she had survived him, had married Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, but died the year after her marriage, to the great grief
of the people. This happened before her father became king.
It was towards the middle of King George’s reign that a war broke
out between the Greeks and Turks. A great many English gentlemen,
amongst whom was the poet, Lord Byron, went to Greece to take the
part of the Greeks. The struggle lasted several years, and was ended
at length by a battle fought in the harbour of Navarino, where all
the Turkish ships were sunk by the British fleet.—Navarino is at
the south-west corner of the Morea in Greece.—The commander of the
Turkish fleet was named Ibrahim Pacha, and the commander of the
English fleet was Sir Edward Codrington. After this battle, Greece,
which had been subject to Turkey, was made into an independent
kingdom, and three German princes were invited in turn to be king;
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (the same who had married our Princess
Charlotte) declined the honour, but Prince Otho of Bavaria accepted
the invitation, and became Otho the First, King of Greece. Lord Byron
died in Greece three years before the war ended. Otho was afterwards
sent away because he governed badly, and the crown was given to
Prince George of Denmark, brother to our Princess of Wales.
A law was passed in this reign to allow Roman Catholics to sit in
Parliament and help to make laws for the country. There was much
talking and considering before this was done, for many people thought
that if the Roman Catholics helped to make laws, they would try to
change the religion of the country, and to bring back popery, which
had in former times kept the people in darkness, and caused a great
deal of misery and cruel persecution, as you have read in the former
part of this History. Others, believing that the Roman Catholics of
the present day were wiser, and that they would continue loyal to the
Sovereigns and faithful to the laws of the land, consented to admit
them to equal privileges with their Protestant fellow-countrymen.
So at last this law was passed; and now Roman Catholics sit in
Parliament, and are made Judges in courts of law.
About the same time the severe laws against Protestant Dissenters,
which were made under Charles the Second, were done away with.
The king died at Windsor at the age of sixty-eight, after a reign of
ten years.
George the Fourth was a very accomplished man, but he cared so much
more for pleasing himself than for doing his duty and thinking of
others, that he was not a favourite with his people.
Many new buildings were erected, and various improvements made in
this reign. The New London Bridge and the Thames Tunnel were begun;
the Menai Suspension Bridge, joining the Isle of Anglesey to North
Wales, was completed; the Regent’s Park was laid out; the Zoological
Gardens were opened; and Regent Street and other handsome streets
were built.
One very great improvement was made by Sir Robert Peel in causing the
streets and roads to be guarded night and day by active, well-drilled
policemen, instead of by watchmen, who used to be on duty only at
night, and who were very frequently feeble old men scarcely able to
take care of themselves.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] This is the end of little Arthur’s History, as first written by
Lady Callcott; but for the benefit of the children of the present day
who read this little History, a few more chapters are added.