THE LAST OF THE GEORGES.
[Sidenote: 1829--Wellington fights Lord Winchilsea]
One incident connected more or less directly with the Catholic
Emancipation question deserves historical record, if only for the curious
light it throws upon the contrast between the manners of that day and the
manners of more recent times. Shortly before the passing of the Catholic
Relief Bill, the Earl of Winchilsea wrote a letter which was published in
one of the newspapers strongly denouncing the conduct of the Duke of
Wellington, and declaring him guilty of having joined in a conspiracy to
overthrow the Church and the Constitution of England under false
pretences. This letter was addressed to the secretary of a committee
formed for the establishment of King's College in London, and Lord
Winchilsea had apparently assumed that the subject under consideration
warranted him in expressing his views with regard to the conduct of the
Prime Minister on the Catholic relief question. In more recent times, of
course, such a letter might have been written by anybody, whether peer or
commoner, and published in all the newspapers of the country without
calling for the slightest notice on the part of a Prime Minister. The
Duke of Wellington, however, lived at a time when a different code of
honor and etiquette prevailed. He wrote to Lord Winchilsea a letter, the
principal passage of which is worth quoting to illustrate the peculiar
sense of duty which could, at the time, direct the conduct of a man like
the Duke of Wellington. "The question for me now to decide is this: Is a
gentleman who happens to be the King's Minister to submit to be insulted
by any gentleman who thinks proper to attribute to him disgraceful or
criminal motives for his conduct as an individual? I cannot {81} doubt
of the decision which I ought to make on this question. Your Lordship is
alone responsible for the consequences." This was, of course, a
challenge to Lord Winchilsea to withdraw his accusation or to fight a
duel forthwith.
Now, to the cool, philosophic mind, at least in later times, it might
well seem obvious that whether Lord Winchilsea's charge against the Duke
of Wellington was just or unjust, its justice or injustice could not in
any way be made clear by the discharge of bullets from the pistols of the
challenger and the challenged. The cool, philosophic observer of a later
time might wonder also how the Duke's sense of public responsibility
could allow him to peril a life which he must have known to be of the
highest value to his country, for the sake of taking part in a combat
with an antagonist whose personal opinion of the Duke and of the Duke's
conduct could not be of the slightest importance to the vast majority of
the Duke's countrymen. But the Duke of Wellington was not in any case a
cool, philosophic observer, and he lived at a time when the established
or tolerated code of what was called personal honor seemed to have
nothing to do either with Christian morals, with political expediency, or
with ordinary common-sense. Wellington accepted without question the
dictates of the supposed code of honor, and he sent his challenge. Lord
Winchilsea, it will be seen, did not intend to stand by his gross and
preposterous charge against the Duke, but he did not think that the code
of honor allowed him to say so like a man, and tender an apology like
what we should now call a gentleman, without first subjecting himself to
the fire of his wrongfully accused antagonist. So the Duke and the Earl
went out with their seconds and met at Wimbledon. The victor of Waterloo
was not destined to kill or be killed in this absurd contest. When the
parties to the duel were placed on the ground and the word was given.
Lord Winchilsea reserved his fire, the bullet from the Duke's pistol
passed him without doing any harm, and Lord Winchilsea then discharged
his pistol in the air, and authorized his second to make known his
retraction of his {82} charge against the Duke, and his apology for
having made such a charge. The retraction and the apology were published
in the newspapers, and there, to use a form of words which was very
common at the time after such an incident, the affair ended with equal
honor to both parties.
[Sidenote: 1829--Comments upon Wellington's duel]
It seems hard now to understand how any man, in the position and with the
responsibilities of the Duke of Wellington, could bring himself to think
that he was called upon to risk his life for the mere sake of resenting
an imputation which no rational man in his senses could possibly have
regarded as of any consequence to the Duke's public or private character.
The whole incident seems to us now one more properly belonging to comic
opera than to serious political life. We can hardly conceive the
possibility of the Marquis of Salisbury insisting on fighting a duel with
some hot-headed member of the House of Lords who had chosen to describe
him as a conspirator against the Constitution and the Church of England.
The Duke of Wellington, however, must be judged according to the ways of
his own time, and the code of political and personal honor in which he
had been nurtured. There has not been in modern political history a more
conscientious and high-minded statesman than Robert Peel, and yet not
very long before the Winchilsea business Robert Peel had only been
prevented by the interference of the law from going out to fight a duel
with Daniel O'Connell, and O'Connell himself had killed his man in
another affair of honor, as it was called. We who live in these islands
at the present time may be excused if we indulge in a certain feeling of
self-complacency when we contemplate the advance towards a better code of
personal honor and a better recognition of the teachings of Christianity
which has been made here since the days when the Duke of Wellington
thought that for him, as a gentleman, there was no other course to take
than to risk his life because an insignificant person had made a
ridiculous charge against him.
Still, it is something to know that there were cool observers even at the
time who thought the Duke of Wellington had done wrong. Charles
Greville, in commenting on {83} the duel, says that "everybody, of
course, sees the matter in a different light; all blame Lord Winchilsea,
but they are divided as to whether the Duke ought to have fought or not."
"Lord Winchilsea is such a maniac, and has so lost his head, that
everybody imagined the Duke would treat what he said with silent
contempt." Greville utterly condemns Lord Winchilsea for having made the
attack on the Duke, and for not having sent an apology when it was first
required of him, but he adds: "I think, having committed the folly of
writing so outrageous a letter, he did the only thing a man of honor
could do in going out and receiving a shot and then making an apology,
which he was all this time prepared to do, for he had it ready written in
his pocket." Most of us at this time of day would be inclined to think
that if Lord Winchilsea was willing to make the apology and had it ready
written in his pocket, he might have acted according to a better code of
honor by not exposing the Duke to the chance of killing him. However, we
must not expect too much from Greville, and it is well to know, as his
final verdict on the whole affair, that "I think the Duke ought not to
have challenged him; it was very juvenile, and he stands in far too high
a position, and his life is so much _publica cura_ that he should have
treated him and his letter with the contempt they merited." The King, it
seems, approved of the Duke of Wellington's conduct in making the letter
the subject of a challenge and meeting his opponent in a duel. Greville
goes on to remark that somebody said "the King would be wanting to fight
a duel himself," whereupon some one else observed, "He will be sure to
think that he has fought one."
The Duke of Wellington had a great deal to trouble him after the passing
of the Catholic Relief Bill. There was great distress all over the
country, and the discontent was naturally in proportion to the distress.
Wellington had lost much of his popularity with the more extreme members
of his own party, who could not lift their minds to an understanding of
the reasons which had compelled him to change his old opinions on the
Catholic question. It cannot be doubted, too, that he sometimes felt
disappointed {84} with the results which were following from his policy
towards Ireland. Members of his own party were continually dinning into
his ears their declaration that the measure passed in favor of the Roman
Catholics had not put a stop to agitation in Ireland, and that, on the
contrary, O'Connell was now beginning to agitate for a repeal of the Act
of Union. At that time, as at all times, the opponents of any great act
of justice were eager to make out that its concession must have been an
utter failure, because instead of satisfying everybody forever it had
only led other people to demand that other acts of justice should also be
done. Some members of Wellington's own party were now inclined for the
first time to become advocates of Parliamentary reform, on the ground
that nothing but a reduced franchise in England could save the State
Church from being overthrown by the emancipated Roman Catholics. Those
who had trembled before at the possibility of revolutionary sentiments
leading to the subversion of the throne, now declared themselves in
terror lest the spread of Roman Catholic doctrine should lead to the
subversion of the Protestant altar. The truth is, and it is a truth of
which governments have to be reminded even in our own times, that the
long delay of justice was alone answerable for any alarm which might have
been caused by its sudden concession. The arguments in favor of Catholic
Emancipation were just as strong, and ought to have been just as clear,
to all rational men before it became evident to Wellington and Peel that
there was no choice but between emancipation and civil war. The plain
duty of a civilized government is to redress injustice at the earliest
possible moment, and not to wait idly or ignorantly until the danger of a
popular uprising makes instant redress inevitable.
[Sidenote: 1829--Need for radical reforms]
The great distress in many parts of the country was in the mean time
leading to new forms of crime. The burning of corn-ricks and farm-houses
was becoming in many districts the terrible form in which hunger and want
of work made wild war against property. The Game Laws, which were then
at their highest pitch of severity, led to {85} ferocious and frequent
struggles between the patrons and the enemies of legalized monopoly.
Poachers were killed by game preservers, and game preservers were killed
by poachers. Every assize court told this same story. An entirely new
form of crime broke out in the murders which were committed for the sake
of obtaining bodies to be sold for the purposes of dissection. The price
of food was often made enormously high by the purely artificial
restrictions imposed upon its importation, and even in some cases on its
mere production, and in ordinary human society increase of poverty always
means increase of crime. A large proportion of the population was sunk
in absolute ignorance, and as yet no systematic attempt whatever was made
to establish any form of national education. The luxury and the
extravagance of the rich were enormous, and were greatly stimulated by
the example of the sovereign and the Court. Under the influence of the
spasmodic and unreal impulse given to commercial activity by the late
wars the rich seemed to be growing richer, while by the increased
taxation which was the result of these wars the poor were certainly made
to grow poorer. The demand for Parliamentary reform was beginning to
express itself in systematic movements. Lord John Russell and Henry
Brougham made their voices heard in the House of Commons and throughout
the country. Daniel O'Connell went so far as to declare that nothing
would satisfy him short of universal suffrage--manhood suffrage, that is
to say--vote by ballot, and triennial Parliaments. This was thought at
the time by most people to be the mere raving of a madman or the wild
outcry of a revolutionary demagogue. We are not very far from the full
accomplishment of the programme just now. The agitation against slavery
and the slave trade was becoming an important movement. The time, in
fact, was one of storm and high pressure. The shapes of great coming
changes were daily seen upon the horizon, and part of the community
regarded as the portents of coming national destruction what others
welcomed as the bright signs of approaching prosperity, education, and
peace.
{86}
[Sidenote: 1830--Death of George the Fourth]
One coming change all men looked forward to with the conviction that it
was near. The end of the reign was close at hand. The King's health and
strength had wholly given way of late years, and it was beyond the reach
of medical science to do much for the prolongation of his life, even if
George had been the sort of man to give medical science any chance of
doing much for him. Preparations, however, were still being made for his
birthday celebration in April, and nothing was done by any official
announcement to give strength to the general prevailing impression that
the end was near at hand. When, on April 15, a bulletin was at last
issued, it merely announced that the King was suffering from a bilious
attack accompanied by a slight difficulty in breathing, but nothing was
said to intimate that the King's physicians were in any alarm for the
result. The royal physicians still kept issuing bulletins, but they were
so vague in their terms that it is impossible to believe they were not
made purposely deceptive. It would appear that King George, like many
braver and better men, had a nervous objection to any admission by
himself or on his behalf that there was the slightest reason for alarm as
to the state of his health. Greville, who was then in Rome, notes on May
12 that: "Everybody here is in great alarm about the King, who I have no
doubt is very ill." Then Greville adds, in characteristic fashion: "I am
afraid he will die before I get home, and I should like to be in at the
death, and see all the proceedings of a new reign." But he makes up his
mind that he must not hurry his departure on the ground that "I shall
probably never see Rome again, and I have a good chance of seeing at
least one king more leave us."
Days and days went on and the public were still kept in doubt, until on
May 24 a message was sent in the King's name to both Houses of Parliament
to say that the King no longer found it convenient to sign State papers
with his own hand, and hoped some means might be found for relieving him
from the necessity of making any attempt to discharge the painful duty.
This announcement made it clear enough to everybody that the King was in
a very {87} weak condition, but there was naturally some difficulty about
devising an entirely satisfactory method of dispensing him from the duty
of appending his sign-manual to important documents. Not a very long
time had passed away since the throne of England was nominally occupied
by an insane sovereign. It was thought quite possible that insanity
might show itself in the present King, and it was absolutely necessary
that the utmost care should be taken to provide against any chance of the
royal authority being misused by those who surrounded the sovereign. It
was arranged, therefore, that the sign-manual should be affixed in the
King's presence, and in obedience to his order given by word of mouth,
and that the document thus stamped must be endorsed by three members of
the Privy Council. All this was to be provided for by an Act of
Parliament, and the Act was only to be in operation during the session
then going on, in order that if the King's malady should last the renewal
of the regular authority must be formally sought from the Legislature.
The Bill for this purpose became law on May 28, and it remained in
operation but for a very short time. On June 26, about three in the
morning, the reign of George the Fourth came to an end. The death was
sudden, even when we consider that there had been for some time no hope
left of the King's recovery. George was sitting up in bed, and to all
outward appearance was not any worse than he had been for some days
before, when suddenly a startled expression came over his face, he leaned
his head on the shoulder of one of his attendants, was heard to say, "O
God, this is death," and then all was over.
The rupture of a blood-vessel proved to have been the immediate cause of
death, but ossification of some of the vessels near the heart had begun
years before and a complication of disorders had been gradually setting
in. The King's mode of life was not one which gave him any chance of
rallying against such disorders. He was reckless in his food and drink,
and had long been in the way of cheering and stimulating himself by
glasses of cherry-brandy taken at any moment of the day when the impulse
came upon {88} him. Shortly before his death George made an earnest
request to the Duke of Wellington, who was in constant attendance, that
he should be buried in the night-shirt which he was wearing at the time.
The Duke was somewhat surprised at this request, for one reason among
others that the garment in question did not seem likely to commend itself
as a shroud even to a sovereign less particular as to costume than George
the Fourth had been. During his later years, however, as we learn from
the testimony of Wellington himself, the King, who used to be the very
prince of dandies where his outer garments were concerned, had got into
the way of sleeping in uncleanly nightshirts and particularly dirty
night-caps. When the King was dead, Wellington noticed that there was a
red silk ribbon round his neck beneath the shirt. The ribbon was found
to have attached to it a locket containing a tiny portrait of Mrs.
Fitzherbert, perhaps the one only woman he had ever loved, perhaps, too,
the woman he had most deeply wronged. It seemed that at one period of
their love story the King and Mrs. Fitzherbert had exchanged small
portraits, each covered by half a cut diamond, and no doubt there was an
understanding that each should rest forever on the breast of its wearer.
[Sidenote: 1830--The character of George the Fourth]
Nothing in the story of George the Fourth's worthless and erring life is
more discreditable and dishonorable to him than the manner in which he
behaved to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the utter falsehood of the denial which
he had given to the reports that a marriage ceremony had taken place
between them--a falsehood which, be it remembered, he had declared to
Charles Fox upon his honor to be a truthful statement. The moralist may
be a little puzzled how to make up his mind as to the bearing of this
incident upon the character of George the Fourth. Does it relieve the
murky gloom of George's life by one streak of light if we find that,
after all, he did love Mrs. Fitzherbert to the last, and that in his
dying moments he wished her portrait to go with him to the tomb? Or does
it darken the stain upon the man's life to know that he really did love
the woman whom nevertheless he could deliberately consign {89} to an
infamous imputation? We do not know whether any writer of romance has
ventured to introduce into his pages an incident and a problem such as
those which are thus associated with the death-bed of George the Fourth.
It is something to know that the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence,
whom that death-bed had made King of England, was kind and generous to
Mrs. Fitzherbert, and did all in his power to atone to her for the trials
which her love and her royal lover had brought upon her life.
George was in his sixty-eighth year when he died. It would not be easy
to find anywhere the story of a life which left so little of good to be
remembered. George seems to have had some generous impulses now and
then, and he probably did some kindly acts which could be set off against
his many errors, imperfections, ignoble selfishnesses, and grave
offences. But the record of his career as history gives it to us is that
of a life almost absolutely surrendered to self-indulgence. It is only
fair to remember when we consider all the unworthy acts of his manhood
that the unwise and harsh restraints imposed upon him in his early years
are accountable, at least to a certain extent, for the follies and the
vices to which he yielded himself up when he became, as Byron says of one
of his characters, "Lord of himself, that heritage of woe." Heritage of
woe it certainly was in the case of George the Fourth. In his early
manhood he appears to have had the gift of forming close friendships with
men of genius and of noble impulse, but their example never told upon
him, and as one cause or other removed them from his side his career bore
with it no trace of their influence or their inspiration. No one ever
seems to have loved him except Mrs. Fitzherbert alone, and we have seen
how that love was repaid. Even those who were most devoted to him in his
later years, because of their devotion to the royal house and to the
State of which he was the representative, found themselves compelled to
bear the heaviest testimony against his levity, his selfishness, his lack
of conscience, his utter indifference to all the higher objects and
purposes of life.
George must have had some natural talents and some {90} gifts of
intellect, for he would otherwise not have chosen such friends as those
whom in his better days he chose out and brought around him. We are told
that he had marvellous powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit,
and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whom
he was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete in
repartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine as
a talker even among men whose names still live in history because of
their reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to the
mind that the guests of the Prince Regent might be easily inclined to
discover genuine wit in any repartee which came from the Prince Regent,
but it is certain that some at least of the men who surrounded him were
not likely to have been betrayed into admiration merely because of the
rank of their royal entertainer. Burke was held to have spoken
disparagingly of George when he described him as "brilliant but
superficial." To one of Burke's deep thought and wide information a man
might well have seemed superficial in whom others nevertheless believed
that they saw evidences of intellect and understanding, but if Burke
thought a man brilliant it is only reasonable to assume that that man's
conversation must have had frequent flashes of brilliancy.
[Sidenote: 1830--The Third and Fourth Georges contrasted]
Undoubtedly George was capable sometimes of appreciating thoroughly the
qualities of greatness in other men, but the appreciation never left any
abiding influence upon his character or his career. He certainly did not
make himself the cause of so much injury to the best interests of the
State as George the Third had done, but it has also to be observed that
when George the Third went wrong and obstinately maintained a wrongful
course he was acting in dogged obedience to what he believed to be his
conscience and the teachings of his creed. George the Fourth had
absolutely no conscience and no law of life, and when he talked most
vehemently and loudly about his coronation oath those who were accustomed
to deal with him knew quite well from experience that when he had
exhausted his humor by a {91} sufficient outpouring of eloquence he would
be sure to take the advice given to him and to trouble himself no more
about the question of conscience. In this way, of course, George the
Fourth did less harm to the State than his father had done, but when we
come to compare the moral character of the two men we must admit that the
obstinacy of the father deserves the recognition which we cannot give to
the spasmodic and ephemeral self-assertion of the son. Nobody for a
moment believed that George the Fourth had the slightest idea of actually
abdicating his royal position in England and betaking himself to
perpetual boredom in Hanover rather than consent to the passing of
Catholic Emancipation. But at times of trial those who were around
George the Third had good reason to believe that if he were driven to
choose between his throne and his conscience he would have come down
deliberately from the throne and followed his conscience whithersoever it
might lead him. With George the Fourth the only question was how long he
would stand the wear and tear of having to defend his position, and how
soon he would begin to feel that the inconvenience of giving in would be
less troublesome than the inconvenience of holding out. Even the most
courtly historian would be hard put to it if he were set to find out any
passage in the whole of George the Fourth's matured life which compels
admiration.
George seems to have been an absolutely self-centred man. He was to all
appearance constitutionally unable to import into his mind any
considerations but those which affected his own personal comforts and
likings and indulgences and occasional love of display. There were times
when he evidently thought he was acting a great part, and when it filled
him with joy to believe that he was thus making himself an object of
public admiration; but no higher consideration, no thought beyond him and
the applause he believed himself to be winning, appear to have entered
his mind even at such moments of exaltation. We read in history of
princes who believed themselves qualified by nature to be great actors or
great singers, and who made absurd exhibitions of themselves accordingly
and accepted {92} the courtly and venal applause as genuine tributes to
artistic genius. In the same way, and only in the same way, George the
Fourth sometimes believed himself to be playing a great part, and it
gratified his vanity to act the part out until it became tiresome to him
and he found it a relief to go back to the ordinary delights of his easy,
lazy, and sensuous nature. Perhaps the best that can be said of him is
that he had possibly some gifts which under other conditions might have
been turned to better account. Perhaps if he had had to work for a
living, to make a career in life for himself, to depend for his success
entirely on the steady use of his own best qualities, and to avoid the
idleness and self-indulgence which would have condemned him to perpetual
stint and poverty, he might have made a respectable name in some career
where intelligence and application count for much. But a hard fortune
had condemned him to be a king, and to begin by being the son of a king,
and thus to find as the years went on increasing opportunity of
gratifying all his meanest tastes and finding always around him the ready
homage which accords its applause to the most ignoble caprices and the
most wanton self-indulgence. The reign of George the Fourth saw great
deeds and great men; it could have seen few men in all his realm less
deserving a word of praise than George the Fourth.
[Sidenote: 1830--Events in the reign of George the Fourth]
The reign saw the beginning of many great enterprises in practical
science, the uprising of many philanthropic combinations, and the first
movements of political and social reform. It saw the earliest attempts
made in a systematic way towards the spread of education among the
multitude, and the close of many a bright career in literature and the
arts. Bishop Heber died in 1826. The death of Byron has already been
recorded in these pages, and at even an earlier period of the reign two
other stars of the first magnitude in the firmament of literature ceased
to shine upon the earth in bodily presence with the deaths of Keats and
Shelley. John Kemble, probably the greatest English tragic actor from
the days of Garrick to the uprising of Edmund Kean, died while George the
Fourth was {93} King. Sir Thomas Lawrence, Flaxman, Fuseli, and
Nollekens ceased to work for art. Sir Humphry Davy, Dugald Stewart, and
Pestalozzi were lost to science. The reign saw the foundation of the
Royal Society of Literature, which, to do him justice, George the Fourth
helped to establish; the beginning of Mechanics' Institute, and the
opening of some new parks and the Zoological Gardens. It is doubtful if
the Thames Tunnel can be described as a really valuable addition to the
triumphs of engineering, and it will perhaps be generally admitted that
Buckingham Palace was not an artistic addition to the architectural
ornaments of the metropolis. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge was set on foot owing chiefly to the energy and the instincts
of Henry Brougham.
We have seen how the foreign policy of Canning opened a distinctly new
chapter in English history, and it may be observed that owing to the
influence of that policy the principle of neutrality was maintained under
difficult conditions, and even where the general sympathy of England went
distinctly with one of the parties to a foreign dispute. This policy
might well have been followed with credit and advantage to England on
more than one critical occasion at a much later time. The reign saw the
beginning of the movement towards free trade as a distinct international
policy, and saw the removal of some of the most cramping and antiquated
restrictions on the commerce of the kingdom and the colonies. The
crusade against slavery and the slave-trade may be said to have begun its
march in anything like organized form during this reign. The political
principles which we now describe as Liberal became a new force in the
State during the same time. The idea that even beneficent despotism can
be counted on as an enduring or an endurable form of government began to
die out, and the principle came to be more and more distinctly and loudly
proclaimed that the best form of government must be not only for, but by,
the people.
These things are in themselves enough to show that in the sphere of
political and social reform as well as in that {94} of practical science
the reign of George the Fourth was at least a reign of great beginnings.
The student of history may perhaps draw an instructive and a moral lesson
from the knowledge forced upon him of the fact which seems lamentable in
itself that to the ruler of the State little or nothing was due for the
achievements which give the reign its best claim to be honored in
history. The reign of George the Fourth teaches us that in a country
like modern England, while a good sovereign may do much to forward the
intellectual, political, and social progress of the people, even the
worst sovereign could no longer do much to retard it.
[Sidenote: 1830: The Georges and the Stuarts]
The Four Georges had come and gone. A famous epoch in English history
had ended. Four princes of the same race, of the same name, had ruled in
succession over the English people. Practically, the reigns of the four
namesakes may be said to coincide with, to comprehend, and to represent
the history of the eighteenth century in England. The reign of George
the Fourth may be regarded as a survival from the eighteenth into the
nineteenth century, as the reign of Anne was a survival from the
seventeenth into the eighteenth century. In all the changes of that long
and eventful age one change is very memorable and significant. The
position of the dynasty was very different when George the Fourth died
from what it was when his great-great-grandfather came over unwillingly
from Germany to grasp the sceptre. When the Elector of Hanover became
King of England, the Stuart party was still a power in political life and
the Stuart cause the dearest hope of a very large number of devoted
Englishmen. It might well be hard for men to realize in the days of
George the Fourth that in the reign of the first George and in the reign
of the second George the throne reeled beneath the blows which the armed
adherents of the exiled Stuart princes struck at the supremacy of the
sovereigns of the House of Brunswick. Even when the third George came to
the throne there were still desperate dreamers who hoped against hope
that something, anything, might happen which would allow the King--the
King over the {95} water--to enjoy his own again. When the last of the
Georges passed away, the Stuart cause had been buried for nearly half a
century in that grave in Rome which encloses the remains of the last and
perhaps the most unhappy of the Stuart princes.
{96}
WILLIAM THE FOURTH.