POPULAR ALARMS--ROYAL EXCURSIONS.
[Sidenote: 1820--The Cato Street conspiracy]
The plot which has been already mentioned as one of the unpropitious
events that marked the opening of George the Fourth's reign was the
famous Cato Street conspiracy. The conspiracy was nothing less than a
plot for the assassination, all at once, of the whole of his Majesty's
ministers. The principal conspirator was a man named Thistlewood, a
compound of half-crazy fanaticism and desperate villany--a creature who
believed that he had private vengeance to satisfy, and who had, at the
same time, persuaded himself that no good could come to the people of
England until an example had been made of the King's official advisers
by the avenging hand of the lover of liberty. The novelty as well as
the audacity of the plot created a perfect consternation all through
England, and it became, for a while, the sincere conviction of a vast
number of reasonable Englishmen that the whole political and social
system of the kingdom was undermined by such plots, and that only the
most strenuous exertions made by the champions of law and order could
protect the realm from an outbreak of horrors far transcending any of
those that had convulsed France during the worst days of the
Revolution. It was soon made clear enough that Thistlewood's plot was
a conspiracy which included only a very small number of men, and it has
never been quite certain whether it was not originally put in motion by
the machination of some of the paid spies and informers whom it was
believed, at that time, to be the duty of the Ministry to keep in its
service for the detection and the frustration of revolutionary
conspiracy. It was the common practice of spies and informers, in
those days, to go {16} about secretly in quarters where revolutionary
conspiracy was believed to be in existence, to represent themselves to
some of the suspected plotters as fellow-revolutionists and
brother-conspirators, and thus to get into their confidence, and even
to suggest to them some new form of conspiracy, in order that their
willingness to accept the suggestion might mark them out as proper
subjects for a Government prosecution and obtain for the informers the
credit of the detection.
[Sidenote: 1820--Origin of the conspiracy]
Thistlewood had been engaged in popular agitation for some sort of
reconstitution of political society, and he had been once put on his
trial for some alleged offence arising out of such an agitation. More
lucky than many other of his contemporaries under similar conditions,
he was brought before a jury who found him not guilty of the charge
made against him. Now, if Thistlewood had been a sane member of even
an Anarchist organization, he might have been softened in his feelings
towards the existing order of things by finding that a jury had
actually recognized the possibility of his being formally charged with
an offence against the Crown and yet not being guilty. But Thistlewood
regarded the bare fact that a charge had been made against him as a
crime calling out for vengeance, and in his frenzy he got the idea into
his head that Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, was the person on whom
he was bound to take revenge. Accordingly, the unfortunate creature
actually sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth, inviting and defying him to
mortal combat. Perhaps Lord Sidmouth would have acted wisely if he had
taken no notice whatever of this preposterous challenge, but, at the
same time, it is only fair to remember that Lord Sidmouth might think
it dangerous to the public peace to allow a person to go unrebuked who
had sent a challenge to a Minister of the Crown. Criminal proceedings
were, therefore, taken against Thistlewood, and, instead of being
committed to the protection of a lunatic asylum, the author of the
challenge was sentenced to a year's imprisonment. When his prison time
was over, Thistlewood came out a man inflamed with a desire for
vengeance on all the ruling classes {17} in general, and on Ministers
of the Crown in particular. Like the murderer in "Macbeth," he thought
himself one whom the vile blows and buffets of the world had so
incensed that he was reckless what he did to spite the world. He soon
got around him a small gang of agitators as ignorant and almost as
crazy as himself, and he initiated them into a grand scheme for dealing
a death-blow to all the ministers at once, and then seizing on the
Bank, Mansion House, and Tower of London, and from these strongholds
proclaiming the existence of a provisional government.
Now the whole notion of such a plot as this, and any possible success
coming out of it, may seem, at first sight, too crazy to be accepted by
any set of men, however ignorant or however wicked, who were not
downright lunatics. But it is certain that Thistlewood did find a
small number of men who were not actually lunatics, and who yet were
ready to join with him and to risk their lives in his enterprise. The
first act in the plot was to be the assassination of the King's
ministers. One of the professional spies in the employment of the
authorities, a man named Edwards, was already in communication with
Thistlewood and his friends. The plot had been for a considerable time
in preparation, and it was put off for a while because of the death of
George the Third, and the hopes entertained by the conspirators that
the new King might go back to the political principles of his earlier
years, discard Lord Liverpool, Lord Sidmouth, and his other Tory
advisers, and thus render it unnecessary for patriotic men to put them
to death in order to save the country.
When, however, it became apparent that George the Fourth was to keep
around him the ministers who had served him when he was Prince Regent,
it was determined that the work must go on. Edwards, the spy, was able
to make it known to Thistlewood that there was to be a dinner of the
members of the Cabinet on February 23, 1820, and the opportunity was
thought to be placed by a kindly fate in the hands of the conspirators.
Meanwhile the minister at whose house the dinner was to take place,
Lord {18} Harrowby, was kept fully informed of all that was going on,
and he wisely resolved to take no public notice of the scheme until the
day for the dinner should arrive, when the instruments of the wholesale
murder-plot could be suddenly arrested at the moment of their attempt
to carry out their design. Thistlewood and most of his companions had
their headquarters in the garrets of a house in Cato Street, Edgware
Road, and there it was arranged among them that they should remain
until one or two of their accomplices, who were kept at watch for the
purpose, should come to them and report that the doomed dinner-guests
had assembled. Then the conspirators were to repair to the
neighborhood of Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square. One of the
outpost men was to knock at Lord Harrowby's door, and the moment the
door was opened all the gang were to rush in and put the ministers to
death. Lord Harrowby took good care not to have any guests that
evening, but the outpost men of the conspiracy were deceived by the
fact that a dinner-party was actually going on at the house of the
Archbishop of York next door, and when they saw carriages arriving
there they felt sure this was the dinner-party for which they were
waiting. They waited there until the last of the guests appeared to
have arrived, and then set out to give notice to Thistlewood and his
companions. Before the outpost men had got back to Cato Street the
police were already there, and an attempt was made to arrest the whole
of the conspirators. A scuffle took place, in which Thistlewood
stabbed one of the policemen to the heart. The constituted authorities
had contrived to make almost as much of a bungle as the conspirators
had done; the military force did not arrive in time, and Thistlewood
and some of his accomplices succeeded, for the moment, in making their
escape. It was only for the moment. Thistlewood was arrested next
day. There was nothing heroic or dramatic about the manner of his
capture. He had sought refuge at the house of a friend in Moorfields,
and he was comfortably asleep in bed when the house was surrounded and
he was made prisoner. He was put on trial soon after, and, {19} with
four of his accomplices, was sentenced to death, and on May 1 the five
were executed.
[Sidenote: 1820--The government and the conspiracy]
The evidence at the trial made it clear to any reasonable mind that the
plot was confined altogether to the small knot of ignorant desperadoes
who held their councils in Cato Street, and to the informer Edwards,
who had been in communication with them. The public were never allowed
to know what had become of this man Edwards. Had he been pensioned by
the Government and been allowed to pass into honorable and comfortable
retirement, or was he to be arrested and put on his trial like other
conspirators? Several attempts were made to get at the truth by means
of questions to the ministers in the House of Commons, but no
satisfactory reply could be extracted or extorted. Indeed, it seemed
quite probable that the general feeling among the ruling classes at the
time would have been that the Government had done a very good thing by
employing a man to help in working up murderous conspiracies in order
that such conspiracies should be frightened out of existence, and that
it was quite right to protect and reward the emissaries who had
rendered such faithful service. For a time there was a widespread and
sincere belief that the Cato Street conspiracy was only one in a vast
network of conspiracies from which nothing but the severest measures of
repression could save England. The King himself in his royal message
to Parliament was careful to make use of the Cato Street conspiracy as
another and a crowning evidence of the necessity which existed for the
wholesale application of the criminal law in order to save the State
from the triumph of anarchy. A season of absolute panic set in and the
most trivial political disturbance arising in any part of the country
was magnified into another attempt of the emissaries of revolution to
upset the Throne, pull down the Church, and turn the State into the
republic of a rabble.
It is quite clear now to all readers of history that such attempts as
those planned by the Cato Street conspirators can only exist at a time
when stern and savage restrictions are set upon all efforts to obtain a
free public hearing for {20} the discussion of political and social
grievances. Where political wrongs can be arraigned in the open day,
there is no occasion for the work of the midnight conspirator. Already
in England public men were coming forward who were filled with the
noble and patriotic desire to give the philosophy of history some share
in the guidance of political life. Popular education had been totally
neglected in England, and, indeed, the too common impression among the
ruling classes was that the lower orders of the people could never be
kept in due obedience to their superiors if they were permitted to make
themselves unfit for their station by learning how to read and write.
Even the criminal laws themselves bore terrible testimony to the
prevailing ideas, by the fact that property was proclaimed as sacred a
possession as life itself.
[Sidenote: 1820--Offences that entailed the death penalty]
In the early days of George the Fourth's reign Sir James Mackintosh,
the famous historian, philosopher, and philanthropist, brought into the
House of Commons a measure for abolishing the punishment of death in
cases of the stealing of property to the value of five shillings, and
he succeeded in carrying his measure through Parliament. Up to that
time men and women had been executed, year after year, for stealing
from a shop any goods of the value of five shillings, were the goods
but a few loaves of high-priced bread carried off for the purpose of
relieving the sufferings of a hungry family. Sir James Mackintosh's
measure aimed at the abolition of the death penalty in a large number
of other minor offences, but he only succeeded in robbing the gallows
of its victims in two other classes of small offences as well as that
which has just been mentioned.
At this time of day one reads with amazement the arguments which men
like Lord Chancellor Eldon directed against the humane measures
introduced by Sir James Mackintosh. Parliament and the country were
solemnly warned that if such relaxation of the death punishment were
sanctioned by law, the smaller class of tradesmen would have to give up
their shops and their business altogether, because it would be utterly
impossible for them {21} to keep any goods in their windows or on their
shelves if the punishment of death were not maintained for the theft of
a shawl or a snuff-box. At the same time it was well known to
everybody who had eyes to see or ears to hear that numbers of
shoplifters escaped punishment altogether because humane juries
refused, even on the plainest evidence, to find a verdict of guilty
where such a verdict would send the prisoner from the dock to the
gallows. Many a jury, too, when it was impossible to doubt that a
theft had been committed, acted on the ingenious plan of declaring in
their verdict that the articles stolen, whatever their obvious market
worth, were under the value of five shillings, thereby saving the
offender from the doom of death. Thus the repressive power of the law
was necessarily diminished by the uncertainty which common humanity put
in the way of its regular enforcement, and that very barbarity of
punishment which was intended to keep men back from crime by its mere
terrors gave to the criminal only another chance of escape.
Sir James Mackintosh had brought in his measures as successor, in that
line of philanthropic reform, to the lamented Sir Samuel Romilly, whose
melancholy death, already referred to, had created a profound sensation
throughout England and abroad towards the close of the late reign.
About the time when Mackintosh was thus making his partly successful
attempt to put some check on the application of the death penalty,
Henry Brougham was arousing the attention of Parliament and the country
to the lamentable and disgraceful absence of anything like a system of
national education. On June 28, 1820, Brougham brought forward the
first definite proposal submitted to the House of Commons for a scheme
of national education designed to apply to England and Wales. A
parliamentary committee had been sitting for some time to make
inquiries and receive evidence as to the state of education in the
poorer districts of the land. This, too, was owing almost altogether
to the energy and the efforts of Brougham, but the inquiries of the
committee were resulting in nothing very practical, and Brougham
therefore {22} went a step further than he had previously gone and
brought forward his definite scheme for national education. It is
hardly necessary to say that he did not succeed in carrying his
measure, and that generations had yet to pass away before any real and
comprehensive effort wag made by the State to establish such a system
of popular education in these countries as had been known to Prussia
and other European nations almost for time out of mind. But Brougham
had at least started the question, and he never ceased to keep it
moving during his long life. Other reformers, too, as well as
Mackintosh and Brougham, were making their voices heard above, or at
all events through, the din and clamor of the controversy between the
friends of the King and the champions of the Queen. Lord John Russell
may be said to have then begun his noble career as reformer of the
system of parliamentary representation, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards to
be better known as Lord Durham, made more than one bold effort in the
same direction.
[Sidenote: 1821--George the Fourth visits Ireland]
Russell and Lambton were both unsuccessful just then. The time had not
yet come when the question of parliamentary reform was to break up
ministries, set the country aflame with agitation, and put a
thick-witted Sovereign to the necessity of choosing between submission
to the popular demand or facing the risk of revolution. But it might
have been clear to reflective men that the days of unconditional
loyalty to the will of a monarch had nearly run their course in
England, and that the demand for a reform in the criminal law, a
relaxation of the repression of free speech, the establishment of some
system of popular education, and the adoption of a really
representative principle in the construction of Parliament was destined
before long to prove irresistible. The case of the reformers was
emphasized by the widespread agricultural distress from which the
country had long been suffering. The inevitable reaction had set in,
too, after the spasmodic inflation of trade and commerce which had
accompanied the long period of war. Even if the governing system of
England had been as wise and humane as it was {23} unenlightened and
harsh, the condition of the country would, of itself, have favored
almost any demand for reform. As the Government system actually was,
only a national prosperity of universal and impossible sleekness could
have kept the people of England much longer indifferent to the
necessity for reform in almost every department of the political and
social system.
Meanwhile the new King was paying his round of State visits to Ireland,
to Hanover, and to Scotland. We have seen already how the royal
progress to Ireland was delayed by the inconvenient occurrence of the
Queen's death. George soon, however, felt it proper to put away all
affectation of grief, and to pay his visit to Ireland. Great hopes
were entertained there for the beneficent results of the royal visit.
George had been during his earlier days in political sympathy as well
as boon companionship with Fox and with Sheridan. Fox had always shown
himself a true friend to Ireland. The Irish national poet, Thomas
Moore, had, in one of his songs, described the Banshee as wailing over
the grave of him "on whose burning tongue truth, peace, and freedom
hung." It was fondly believed in Ireland that the King was returning
to the sympathies of his earlier days, and that his coming to the
island must bring blessings with it. Daniel O'Connell, the orator and
tribune of the Irish people, appears to have been thoroughly impressed
with the same hopes and the same conviction, and he brought on himself
some satirical lines from Byron in scorn of his credulity and his
confidence. We shall soon have occasion to see what return O'Connell
got for his loyalty and his devotion.
The last of the great Irish patriots of the past age, Henry Grattan,
had been buried in Westminster Abbey the year before George's visit to
Ireland. It was well that so pure-minded and austere a lover of his
country should have been spared the necessity of taking any part in the
ceremonials of welcome which attended the arrival of the new Sovereign
in Ireland. George undoubtedly received what seemed to be a thoroughly
national welcome, for it was fully believed all through the country
that his visit was {24} to open a new era of peace, prosperity, and
well-merited loyalty to Ireland. King George threw himself thoroughly
into the spirit of the occasion. He acted his part with admirable
effect. He was sympathetic, he was convivial, he was pathetic, he was
boisterous, exactly as the theatrical effect of the moment seemed to
call for the display of this or that emotion. In truth, the character
of George the Fourth never can be thoroughly understood unless we are
able to see how much of the artistic, in a certain sense, there was in
his temperament. He had that peculiar gift which has lately come to be
called "artistic"--sincerely by some critics, satirically by
others--the gift which enables a man to throw his whole soul and spirit
into any part which the occasion calls on him to act. George was
almost always playing a part, but it was his artistic temperament which
enabled him to believe that he actually felt at the moment the very
emotions which he tried to express. The favorite dramatic type of the
conscious hypocrite and the deliberate self-recognized deceiver is much
less common in real life than it was believed to be at one period of
our literary history. We may take it for granted that George fully
believed himself to be acting with perfect sincerity on most of the
occasions in his life when he had to utter eloquent sentiments
appropriate to the scene and the hour, or to fling himself into the
different humors of those whom, at different times, he was anxious to
please.
[Sidenote: 1821--The King's reception in Ireland]
During his public performances--for thus they may properly be
called--in Ireland, George was sometimes grave, sometimes gay; shed
tears in some places, indulged in touches of buffoonery in others; and
wherever he went seemed to be giving to those around him only the most
sincere outpouring of his own humor and of his own heart. He appears
thoroughly to have enjoyed his popularity, and to have regarded
himself, for the hour, as the justly idolized hero of the land which he
had come to redeem and to bless. The harbor where he first landed in
Ireland, which was called Dunleary then, has been called Kingstown ever
since, for its name was changed in honor of the monarch's {25} visit to
his Irish subjects. The tourist who has just arrived at Kingstown by
the steamer from Holyhead, and who takes his seat in the train for
Dublin, may see from the window of the railway carriage an obelisk, not
very imposing either in its height or in its sculptured form, which
seems a little out of place amid the ordinary accessories of a railway
and steamboat station. This is the monument which the grateful
authorities of the Irish capital erected to commemorate the spot on
which George the Fourth had set his august feet when he landed on the
shores of Ireland. Except for the obelisk and the change of name there
was not much done to keep the memory of the King green in the
recollections of the Irish people.
On August 12 George landed at Dunleary, where anxious and enthusiastic
crowds had long been waiting to welcome him. He was received with
universal cries of "The King! God bless him!" to which he replied by
waving the foraging-cap which he had been wearing, and crying out, "God
bless you all; I thank you from my heart." Then he got into his
carriage, and with a cavalcade of his attendants and a concourse of
admiring followers he drove to the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park,
some eight or nine miles' distance. When he arrived at the Lodge he
alighted from the carriage and proclaimed to the crowd, "In addressing
you I conceive that I am addressing the nobility, gentry, and yeomen of
Ireland. This is one of the happiest moments of my life. I feel
pleased being the first of my family that set foot on Irish ground.
Early in my life I loved Ireland, and I rejoice at being among my
beloved Irish friends. I always considered them such, and this day
proves to me I am beloved by them." Then he went on to say that
"circumstances of a delicate nature," to which it was needless to
advert, had prevented him from visiting them earlier. Rank, station,
and honor were nothing to him, but "to feel that I live in the hearts
of my Irish subjects is to me the most exalted happiness." He wound up
with the touching words, "I assure you, my dear friends, I have an
Irish heart, and will this night give a proof of my affection towards
you, as I am sure you will towards {26} me, by drinking your health in
a bumper of whiskey punch."
[Sidenote: 1821--The King and the Primacy of all Ireland]
This speech may be taken as the keynote of George's behavior throughout
the entire visit. On the 17th of the month he made his grand state
entrance into Dublin in an open carriage drawn by eight horses, and he
wore in his hat an enormous bunch of shamrocks, to which, by repeated
gestures, he kept incessantly calling the attention of the crowd. More
than once as he gazed upon his admiring followers he was observed to
shed tears. Afterwards he attended reviews, showed himself at the
theatre, was present at a great ball at the Mansion House, received an
entertainment at Trinity College, and visited the residences of some of
the Irish nobility. He talked to everybody, and sometimes in his
conversation showed much of the good sense and shrewdness which really
belonged to him, but in his demeanor towards the general multitude he
always enacted the part of an enthusiastic Sovereign whose enthusiasm
sometimes showed itself in the form of what might have been called, if
he were not a Sovereign, outrageous mountebankcry. On Monday,
September 3, he quitted the shores of Ireland. Just before his
departure he received a deputation headed by Daniel O'Connell, who fell
upon his knees, and in that attitude of loyal devotion presented his
Majesty with a laurel crown. The King was particularly gracious to
O'Connell, shook him warmly by the hand, and accepted gratefully the
gift offered to him, and, for the time, O'Connell divided the applause
of the crowd with the monarch. There was a renewed interchange of good
wishes and blessings, and then the King got into his barge to be
conveyed to the steamer, and several loyal Irishmen, in their
enthusiasm, rushing to see the last of him, tumbled into the sea, and
with some difficulty rescued themselves, or were rescued, from drowning.
This may be said to have ended the royal visit so far as history is
concerned, for, although the King's return to England was delayed for
several days by contrary winds, he had nothing more to do with his
Irish subjects. Byron {27} wrote some satirical verses, which he
prefaced with the words of Curran, the great Irish advocate and orator,
describing Ireland like "a bastinadoed elephant kneeling to receive the
paltry rider," and in which he made mockery of O'Connell's loyalty,
paid a just and generous tribute to Grattan, and proclaimed sincerely
his own love for Ireland and his thorough appreciation of her national
cause. Then the royal visit was over, and the Irish people were soon
to learn the value of the King's profession of sympathy with the wishes
and the wants of his devoted Irish subjects. A curious illustration of
the sincerity of these royal sentiments may be found in a letter
written by the King not very long after to his Prime Minister, Lord
Liverpool, and marked "Most secret and confidential." The letter had
reference to the appointment of a new occupant to the exalted office of
Primate of All Ireland, and the King says, "I do not like, I cannot
reconcile myself to have the Primacy of Ireland filled by an Irishman."
The King, when writing this letter, appears to have been in one of his
deeply religious moods. "I am too far advanced in life," he says, "not
to give subjects of this description the most serious and attentive
consideration. It is, alas! but too true that policy is too often
obliged to interfere with our best intentions, but I do think where the
head of the Church is concerned, especially at such a moment, we ought
alone to be influenced by religious duty. Do not be surprised at this
scrupulous language, for I am quite sincere." Very likely King George
was quite sincere in this momentary burst of religious emotion. It was
a part of his artistic nature to be able thus to fill himself with any
emotion which helped out the performance he had in hand; but it is at
least an odd comment on his recent emotions of love for the Irish
people and absolute trust in their loyal devotion, that he could not
reconcile himself to the idea of allowing any Irishman to occupy the
position of Primate of All Ireland. There was no question in this of
Protestant against Roman Catholic, and that Coronation Oath, which had
in the former reign proved so formidable an obstacle to the recognition
of any Catholic {28} claims, was in no wise brought into question.
Nobody suggested that a Roman Catholic bishop should be made Primate of
All Ireland, but it was strange that soon after George's reiterated
professions of love for his Irish people, and absolute trust in them,
he could not reconcile himself to the idea of any Protestant bishop,
however meritorious, being raised to such an office if the Protestant
bishop happened to be an Irishman.
[Sidenote: 1822--George the Fourth visits Scotland]
King George had to leave his capital again in order to visit other
lands where he had subjects to gratify with the pleasure of his
presence. He paid a visit to Hanover, and then to Scotland. George,
it need hardly be said, was King of Hanover as well as of England, and
he thought it right that he should illumine the Hanoverians with the
light of his royal countenance. So he made his way to Hanover, taking
Brussels in his course. He was accompanied thus far by the Duke of
Wellington and other eminent persons, and he took the opportunity of
surveying the field of Waterloo, and having all the striking points of
the battle-field pointed out and explained to him by the Duke of
Wellington. It would appear that the sovereign's personal survey of
the field on which Napoleon's last great battle had been fought only
served to strengthen the impression on his mind that he had himself
taken a part, and even a distinguished and heroic part, in that
immortal struggle. Here again the artistic nature asserted itself. No
doubt it had long seemed to George that the heir to the English throne
ought to have taken a leading part in a battle which was a
turning-point in the history of England, and by degrees he had
contrived to persuade himself into the belief that he had actually done
the deeds required by the dramatic fitness of things, for it was well
known that, at certain seasons of inspiration, he had described himself
as leading a desperate charge at Waterloo. Then he pursued his way to
Hanover, and he made much the same demonstrations of deep emotion as
those which had delighted the crowds at Dunleary and in Dublin. Again
and again he protested his love and his devotion for his Hanoverian
subjects, again and again he accompanied {29} with voice and with
gesture the singing of patriotic hymns, and on more than one occasion
the royal eyes were seen to be streaming over with sympathetic tears.
All this, however, did not prevent him from sometimes making it known
to the more intimate companions of his journey that he was greatly
bored by the Germans in general, and that he was particularly disgusted
with the Hanoverians. George had always some chosen favorite holding
important personal office in his courtly retinue, and to him, in
moments of relaxation, he occasionally let out his real feelings with
regard to the ceremonial performances which he believed it his duty to
get through. Then he visited Scotland, and was welcomed by
enthusiastic crowds at Leith and in Edinburgh. While he was still on
board the royal vessel at Leith he was waited on by several
distinguished representatives of Scottish feeling, and among others by
no less a personage than Sir Walter Scott. George was very gracious in
his reception of the great novelist, and assured Sir Walter that he was
the one man in Scotland whom he most wished to see. As had been the
fashion during his visit to Ireland, there was a good deal of
spirit-drinking when the King came to testify his gratitude for the
loyal welcome given to him by his Scottish subjects. His Majesty
poured out with his own hand some cherry brandy into a glass, which he
tendered to Sir Walter Scott, and Sir Walter not merely drank off the
liquid thus commended to him, but asked permission to keep the glass as
a perpetual relic of the royal giver and of the august occasion.
Thackeray tells the story of the incident in his lecture on George the
Fourth, and we cannot do better than describe it in his own words:
"When George the Fourth came to Edinburgh," says Thackeray, "a better
man than he went on board the royal yacht to welcome the King to his
kingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which his Majesty had just
drunk, vowed it should remain forever as an heirloom in his family,
clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on it and broke
it when he got home." One can easily imagine how the sudden fate of
the precious relic must have amused {30} and delighted the satirical
genius of Thackeray, who could not quite forgive even Sir Walter Scott
for having lent himself to the fulsome adulation which it was thought
proper to offer to George the Fourth on the occasion of his visit to
his kingdom of Scotland.
Thackeray, indeed, seems to have been a little too hard upon George,
and to have regarded him merely as a worthless profligate and buffoon,
who never really felt any of the generous emotions which the sovereign
found it convenient to summon up at the appropriate seasons. Our own
study of the character leads us to the opinion already expressed, that
George did actually believe for the time in the full sincerity of the
feelings he thought proper to call into action on the occasion of an
important ceremonial, and that the feelings were no less genuine at the
moment than those which came on him when the performance was over, and
he had an opportunity of showing the new state of his mind in the
reaction of weariness caused by the whole tiresome proceedings. George
went through the usual rounds of visits in Scotland, and put on an
appearance of absolute enjoyment during the public entertainments and
popular acclamations which he had brought upon himself. He displayed
himself frequently in a suit of Stuart tartan when he did not array
himself in his costume as a field-marshal. We read that during the
singing of royal songs he not only beat time to the chorus, but
actually accompanied it with his voice. His parting words when he was
leaving the shores of Scotland were the deep-toned and thrilling
benediction, "God bless you all!" The loyal chroniclers of the time
proclaimed that the visit to Scotland was a perfect success, and if the
loyal chroniclers at the time were not in a position to know, how can
we of a later date, who had not the advantage of being present at the
scene, or even of being alive at the time, pretend to dispute the
accuracy of their estimate?
{31}