The wretched reign of George IV. commenced on the 30th January, 1820.
Mr. Buckle speaks of "the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary
who succeeded George III. on the throne." The coronation was delayed for
a considerable period, partly in consequence of the hostility between
the King and his unfortunate wife, and partly because of the cost. We
find the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville writing of the coronation: "I think
it probable that it will be put off, because the King will not like it
unless it be expensive, and Vansittart knows not how to pay for it if it
is." Generous monarchs, these Brunswicks! Thousands at that moment
were in a state of starvation in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Lord
Cassilis writes: "There seems nothing but chaos and desolation whatever
way a man may turn himself.... the lower orders existing only from
the circumstance of the produce of the land being unmarketable.... The
weavers are certainly employed, but they cannot earn more than from six
to eight shillings a week. Such is our state." When the coronation did
ultimately take place, some strange expenses crept in. Diamonds were
charged for to the extent, it is said, of L80,000, which found their way
to one of the King's favored mistresses. The crown itself was made
up with hired jewels, which were kept for twenty-one months after the
coronation, and for the hire of which alone the country paid L11,000.
The charge for coronation robes was L24,000. It was in consequence of
Sir Benjamin Bloom-field having to account for some of the diamonds
purchased that he resigned his position in the King's household. Rather
than be suspected of dishonesty, he preferred revealing that they
had reached the hands of Lady Conyngham. Sir George Naylor, in an
infamously servile publication, for which book alone the country paid
L3,000, describes "the superb habiliments which his Majesty, not less
regardful of the prosperity of the people than of the splendor of his
throne, was pleased to enjoin should be worn upon the occasion of his
Majesty's sacred coronation."
Sir William Knighton declares that on the news of the King's death
reaching the Prince Regent, "the fatal tidings were received with a
burst of grief that was very affecting." The King had been mad and blind
and deaf for ten years, and the Queen, years before, had complained
of the Prince's conduct as unfilial, if not inhuman. With the Prince
Regent's known character, this sudden burst of grief is really "very
affecting."
On the 23d of February, London was startled with the news of what since
has been described as the Cato Street Conspiracy. The trial of Arthur
Thistlewood and his misguided associates is valuable for one lesson. The
man who found money for the secret conspirators, and who incited them
to treason and murder, was one George Edwards. This Edwards was well
described by one of the journals of the period, "as neither more nor
less than the confidential agent of the original conspirators, to hire
for them the treasons they have a purpose in detecting." By original
conspirators were meant Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth. In the House
of Commons, Mr. Alderman Wood moved formally, "That George Edwards be
brought to the bar of the House on a breach of privilege. He pledged
himself, if he had this incendiary in his hands, to convict him of the
crimes imputed; he hoped he had not been suffered to escape beyond seas;
otherwise there were honorable gentlemen who were in possession of him,
so that he might be produced"--meaning by this that he was kept out
of the way by the Government. "He regarded him as the sole author and
contriver of the Cato Street plot. It was strange how such a man should
be going about from public house to public house, nay, from one private
house to another, boldly and openly instigating to such plots; and, in
the midst of this, should become, from abject poverty, suddenly flush
with money, providing arms, and supplying all conspirators." Mr. Hume
seconded the motion. "It appeared by the depositions, not of one person
only, but of a great many persons, that the individual in question
had gone about from house to house with hand-grenades, and, up
to twenty-four hours only preceding the 23d of February, had been
unceasingly urging persons to join with him in the atrocious plot to
assassinate his Majesty's Ministers. All of a sudden he became quite
rich, and was buying arms in every quarter, at every price, and of every
description; still urging a variety of persons to unite with him. Now,
it was very fitting for the interest of the country, that the country
should know who the individuals were who supplied him with the money."
As a fair specimen of the disposition of the King in dealing with
his Ministry, I give the following extract from a memorandum of Lord
Chancellor Eldon, dated April 26th, 1820: "Our royal master seems
to have got into temper again, so far as I could judge from his
conversation with me this morning. He has been pretty well disposed to
part with us all, because we would not make additions to his revenue.
This we thought conscientiously we could not do in the present state of
the country, and of the distresses of the middle and lower orders of the
people--to which we might add, too, that of the higher orders. My own
individual opinion was such that I could not bring myself to oppress the
country at present by additional taxation for that purpose."
On the 23d of March, Henry Hunt, John Knight, Joseph Johnson, Joseph
Healey, and Samuel Bamford were, after six days' trial at York,
found guilty of unlawfully assembling. Lord Grenville feared that, if
acquitted, Peterloe might form a terrible bill of indictment against
the Ministry. His Lordship writes on March 29th, to the Marquis
of Buckingham: "It would have been a dreadful thing if it had been
established by the result of that trial that the Manchester meeting was
under all its circumstances a legal assembly." His Lordship knew that
the magistrates and yeomanry cavalry might have been indicted for murder
had the meeting been declared legal. Sir C. Wolseley and the Rev, J.
Harrison were at this time being prosecuted for seditious speaking,
and were ultimately found guilty on April 10th. In May the state of the
country was terrible; even Baring, the Conservative banker, on May 7th,
described the "state of England" to a full House of Commons, "in the
most lamentable terms." On the 8th we find Mr. W. H. Fremantle saying of
the King, "His language is only about the Coronation and Lady Conyngham
[his then favorite sultana]; very little of the state of the country."
Early in June, it being known that Queen Caroline was about to return to
England, and that she intended to be present at the Coronation, the
King offered her L50,000 a year for life to remain on the Continent,
and forbear from claiming the title of Queen of England. This Caroline
indignantly refused. The Queen's name had, by an order in Council, and
on the King's direction, been omitted from the Liturgy as that of a
person unfit to be prayed for, and on the 6th of July a bill of pains
and penalties was introduced by Lord Liverpool, alleging adultery
between the Queen and one Bartolomeo Bergami. To wade through the mass
of disgusting evidence offered by the advisers of the King in support
of the bill is terrible work. It seems clear that many of the witnesses
committed perjury. It is certain that the diplomatic force of England
was used to prevent the Queen from obtaining witnesses on her behalf.
Large sums of the taxpayers' money were shown to have been spent in
surrounding the Princess of Wales with spies in Italy and Switzerland.
Naturally the people took sides with the Queen. To use the language of
William Cobbett: "The joy of the people, of all ranks, except nobility,
clergy, and the army and the navy, who in fact were theirs, was
boundless; and they expressed it in every possible way that people can
express their joy. They had heard rumors about a lewd life, and about an
adulterous intercourse. They could not but believe that there was some
foundation for something of this kind; but they, in their justice, went
back to the time when she was in fact turned out of her husband's house,
with a child in her arms, without blame of any sort ever having been
imputed to her. They compared what they had _heard_ of the wife
with what they had _seen_ of the husband, and they came to their
determination accordingly. As far as related to the question of guilt or
innocence they cared not a straw; they took a large view of the matter;
they went over her whole history; they determined that she had been
wronged, and they resolved to uphold her."
On the 6th of August, the Duchess of York died. Dr. Doran thus writes
her epitaph: "Her married life had been unhappy, and every day of it was
a disgrace to her profligate, unprincipled, and good-tempered husband."
In the month of September Lord Castlereagh was compelled to admit that
the expenses incurred in obtaining evidence from abroad, against the
Queen, had been defrayed out of the Secret Service money. The trial
of Queen Caroline lasted from the 17th of August until the 10th of
November, when, in a house of two hundred and seven peers, the Queen was
found guilty by a majority of nine votes. On this, Lord Liverpool said
that "as the public sentiment had been expressed so decidedly against
the measure," he would withdraw the bill. Amongst those who voted
against the Queen, the names appear of Frederick Duke of York and
William Henry Duke of Clarence. They had been most active in attacking
the Queen, and now were shameless enough to vote as her judges. While
the trial was proceeding, the Duke of York's private conversation "was
violent against the Queen." He ought surely, for very shame's sake,
this Prince-Bishop, to have remembered the diamonds sent by the King his
father to Princess Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, of Brunswick. Being
the bearer of the jewels, his Royal Highness the Duke of York and
Prince-Bishop of Osnaburg, stole them, and presented them to Mrs. Mary
Anne Clarke. Mr. Denman, the Queen's Solicitor-General, was grandly
audacious in his indictment of the King's brothers for their cowardly
conduct. In the presence of the assembled Lords, he, without actually
referring to him by name, denounced the Duke of Clarence as a
calumniator. He called on the Duke to come forward openly, saying, "Come
forth, thou slanderer!" And this slanderer was afterwards our King! The
Queen, in a protest against the bill, declared that "those who avowed
themselves her prosecutors have presumed to sit in judgment upon the
question between the Queen and themselves. Peers have given their
voices against her, who had heard the whole evidence for the charge,
and absented themselves during her defence. Others have come to the
discussion from the Secret Committee with minds biased by a mass of
slander, which her enemies have not dared to bring forward in the
light." Lord Dacre, in presenting the protest to the assembled peers,
added: "Her Majesty complained that the individuals who formed her
prosecutors in this odious measure, sat in judgment against her. My
Lords, I need not express an opinion upon this complaint; delicacy alone
ought to have, in my opinion, prevented their becoming her accusers, and
also her judges."
George IV. was guilty of the vindictive folly of stripping Brougham of
his King's Counsel gown, as a punishment for his brilliant defence of
the Queen.
While the trial of the Queen was going on, it might have been thought
that the King would at any rate affect a decency of conduct. But these
Brunswicks are shameless. Speaking of the cottage at Windsor, on August
11th, Mr. Fremantle says: "The principal object is of course the Lady
Conyngham, who is here. The King and her always together, separated from
the rest, they ride every day or go on the water, and in the evening
sitting alone.... The excess of his attentions and _enjouement_ is
beyond all belief." On December 17th, Mr. Fremantle finds the King ill
and says: "The impression of my mind is that the complaint is in the
head." Most of the Brunswicks have been affected in the head. Either
George I. was insane, or George II. was not his son. George II. himself
had certainly one or two delusions, if not more. George III.'s sanity is
not affirmed by any one. It may be a question whether or not any
allegation of hereditary affection is enough, however, to justify an
appeal to Parliament for a rearrangement of the succession to the
throne.
On the 9th of January, 1821, King George IV. wrote a private letter
to Lord Chancellor Eldon, in the "double capacity as a friend and as a
minister," in order to influence the proceedings then pending in the law
courts "against vendors of treason and libellers."
On the 8th of June, on the motion of Lord Londonderry, and after an
ineffectual opposition by Mr. Hume, L6,000 a year additional was voted
to the Duke of Clarence. The vote was made retrospective, and thus gave
the Duke L18,000 extra in cash. Besides this, we find a charge of L9,166
for fitting up the Duke's apartments.
On the 5th of July, Mr. Scarlett moved the court on behalf of Olivia
Wilmot Serres, claiming to be the legitimate daughter of the Duke of
Cumberland, who was brother of George III. Mr. Scarlett submitted
that he had documents proving the accuracy of the statement, but on a
technical point the matter was not gone into.
In August, 1821, King George IV. visited Ireland. Knowing his habits,
and the customs of some other members of the family, it excites little
surprise to read that, on the voyage to Dublin, "his Majesty partook
most abundantly of goose pie and whiskey," and landed in Ireland "in
the last stage of intoxication." And this was a king! This journey to
Ireland cost the country L58,261. In a speech publicly made by the
King in Ireland, within a few hours after receiving the news of Queen
Caroline's death, the monarch said: "This is one of the happiest days of
my life."
On the 7th of August Queen Caroline died. In Thelwall's _Champion_ there
is a full account of the disgraceful conduct of the King's Government
with reference to the funeral. On the morning of the 14th, after a
disgusting contest between her executors and the King's Government for
the possession of her remains, they were removed from Brandenburgh House
towards Harwich, on their way to interment at Brunswick. The ministers,
to gratify personal feelings of unworthy rancor beyond the grave, gave
orders that the funeral should take a circuit, to avoid manifestations
of sympathy from the Corporation and the people along the direct route
through London. At Kensington, the procession found every road but that
of London barricaded by the people, and was constrained to take the
forbidden route, with the intention of passing through Hyde Park into
the northern road. The Park gate was closed and barricaded, but was
forced by the military. The upper gate was also barricaded. Here a
conflict took place between the military and the people, and two persons
were shot by the soldiers. The procession moved on, the conflict was
renewed, the people triumphed, and the corpse was borne through the
city. Sir Robert Wilson remonstrated with some soldiers and an officer
on duty; but his humane interference caused his removal from the army.
In return, a large sum was subscribed by the public to compensate Sir
Robert Wilson for his loss. The directing civil magistrate present,
for having consulted his humanity in preference to his orders, and
to prevent bloodshed yielded to the wishes of the multitude, was also
deprived of his commission. On the inquest on the body of one of the men
shot, the coroner's jury, vindicating the rights of the people, returned
a verdict of "Wilful murder" against the Life Guardsman who fired.
While the King was in Ireland he paraded his connection with the
Marchioness of Conyngham in the most glaring manner. Fremantle says: "I
never in my life heard of anything to equal the King's infatuation and
conduct towards Lady Conyngham. She lived exclusively with him during
the whole time he was in Ireland, at the Phoenix Park. When he went to
Slane, she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room. He saluted
her, and they then retired alone to her apartments."
If it be objected that I am making too great a feature of the
Marchioness of Conyngham's connection with the King, I plead my
justification in Henry W. Wynn's declaration of "her folly and
rapacity," affirming that this folly and rapacity have left their clear
traces on the conduct of affairs, and in the increase of the national
burdens. Her husband, as a reward for her virtue, was made an English
peer in 1821. Lord Mount Charles, his eldest son, was made Master of the
Robes, Groom of his Majesty's Bedchamber, and ultimately became a
member of the Government. On this, Bulwer said: "He may prove himself an
admirable statesman, but there is no reason to suppose it."
In order that the student of history may fairly judge the account of the
rapturous reception given to the King in Ireland, it is needful to add
that political discontent was manifest on all sides. Poverty and misery
prevailed in Limerick, Mayo, Cavan, and Tipperary, which counties
were proclaimed, and occupied by a large military force. Executions,
imprisonments, and tumults filled the pages of the daily journals.
In the autumn of 1821, King George IV. visited Hanover, and if the Duke
of Buckingham's correspondence be reliable, "Lord Liverpool put a final
stop to the visit by declaring that no more drafts could be honored,
except for the direct return home."
On the 12th of August, 1822, Castlereagh, the most noble the Marquis of
Londonderry, sent himself to heaven, from North Cray Farm, Bexley, at
the age of fifty-three. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Meaner clay
would have been got rid of at some cross roads.
"The death," says Wallace, "of a public man in England--especially
a death so sudden and lamentable--greatly assuages the political
resentments against him in his life; and there was a reaction in
aristocratic circles in favor of Lord Londonderry when he ceased to
live. His servile complaisance to despots abroad, his predilection for
the worst engines of government at home, were for a moment forgotten.
But the honest hatred of the populace, deep-rooted, sincere, and savage,
remained untouched, and spoke in a fearful yell of triumphant execration
over his remains whilst his coffin was descending into the grave in
Westminster Abbey."
No language could do fitting justice to Robert Stewart, Marquis of
Londonderry. Words would be too weak to describe Castlereagh's cruelty
and baseness towards his own countrymen, or his infernal conduct in
connection with the Government of England. All that can be fittingly
said is, that he was pre-eminently suited to be Minister of State under
a Brunswick.
In 1828 the thanks of Parliament were presented to George IV. for
"having munificently presented to the nation a library formed by
George III." Unfortunately, the thanks were undeserved. George IV. was
discreditable enough to accept thanks for a donation he had never made.
The truth is, says the Daily News, "that the King being, as was his
wont, in urgent need of money, entertained a proposal to sell his
father's library to the Emperor of Russia for a good round sum. The
books were actually packed up, and the cases directed in due form, when
representations were made to Lord Sidmouth, then Home Secretary, on the
subject. The minister resolved, if possible, to hinder the iniquity from
being perpetrated. Accordingly, he represented his view of the matter
to the King. George IV. graciously consented, after a good deal of
solicitation, to present the library to the nation, conditionally on his
receiving in return the same sum as he would have received had the sale
of it to the Emperor of Russia been completed. What the nation did was,
firstly, to pay the money; secondly, to erect a room for the library
at the cost of L140,000; and thirdly, to return fulsome thanks to the
sovereign for his unparalleled munificence.".
On the 25th of April, 1825, the Duke of York spoke in the House of
Lords against Catholic Emancipation. His speech was made, if not by the
direction, most certainly with the consent, of the King. George IV.'s
reluctance to Catholic Emancipation was deep-rooted and violent. The
bare mention of the subject exasperated him. He was known to say,
and only in his milder mood, "I wish those Catholics were damned or
emancipated." The angered despotism of this alternative still afforded
the hope that his intolerance might be overcome by his selfish love of
ease. The Duke of York's address to his brother peers closed with the
declaration that he would, to the last moment of his life, whatever his
situation, resist the emancipation of the Catholics, "so help him God!"
All tyrants think themselves immortal; the Catholics and their cause
outlived the Duke of York, and triumphed. His speech, however, coming
from the presumptive heir to the Crown, had a great share in deciding
the majority of the Lords against the measure; and acted with great
effect upon the congenial mass of brute ignorance and bigotry which is
found ready to deny civil rights to all outside the pale of their own
church.
On the 5th of January, 1827, the Duke of York died. Wallace, in
his "Life of George IV.," says: "Standing in the relation of
heir-presumptive to the throne; obstinately and obtusely fortified
against all concession to the Catholics; serving as a ready and
authorative medium of Toryism and intolerance to reach, unobserved, the
royal ear--his death had a great influence upon the state of parties,
and was especially favorable to the ascendancy of Mr. Canning. He,
some weeks only before he died, and when his illness had commenced,
strenuously urged the King to render the Government uniform and
anti-Catholic; in other words, to dismiss Mr. Canning; and, had he
recovered, Mr. Canning must have ceased to be Foreign Minister, or the
Duke to be Commander-in-chief. The Duke of York was not without personal
good qualities, which scarcely deserved the name of private virtues,
and were overclouded by his private vices. He was constant in his
friendships: but who were his friends and associates? Were they persons
distinguished in the State, in literature, in science, in arts, or even
in his own profession of arms? Were they not the companions and sharers
of his dissipations and prodigalities? He did not exact from his
associates subserviency or form; but it was notorious that, from the
meanness of his capacity, or the vulgarity of his tastes, he descended
very low before he found himself at his own social level. His services
to the army as Commander-in-chief were beyond all measure overrated.
Easy access, diligence, a mechanical regularity of system, which seldom
yielded to solicitation, and never discerned merit; an un-envying,
perhaps unscrupulous, willingness to act upon the advice and appropriate
the measures of others more able and informed than himself,--these were
his chief merits at the Horse Guards. But, it will be said, he had un
uncompromising, conscientious fidelity to his public principles; this
amounts to no more than that his bigotry was honest and unenlightened.
His death, perhaps, was opportune; his non-accession fortunate for the
peace of the country and the stability of his family on the Throne.
Alike incapable of fear and foresight, he would have risked the
integrity of the United Kingdom rather than concede the Catholic claims;
and the whole Monarchy rather than sanction Reform. It would be easy
to suggest a parallel, and not always to his advantage, between the
constitution of his mind and that of James, Duke of York, afterwards
James II., whose obstinate bigotry forced the nation to choose between
their liberties and his deposition from the Throne."
In 1827, the Duke of Clarence obtained, after much opposition, a further
vote of L8,000 a year to himself, besides L6,000 a year to the Duchess.
The Duke of Clarence also had L3,000 a year further, consequent on the
death of the Duke of York, making his allowance L43,000 a year.
In April, 1829, the infamous Duke of Cumberland had stated, that if the
King gave his assent to the Catholic Emancipation Bill, he (the Duke)
would quit England never to return to it. The Right Honorable Thomas
Grenville says, in a letter dated April 9th: "There is some fear that a
declaration to that effect may produce a very general cheer even in the
dignified assembly of the House of Lords." How loved these Brunswicks
have been even by their fellow-peers!
On the 10th of April, the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill passed the
House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington confessing that civil war was
imminent, if the relief afforded by the measure was longer delayed.
On June 26th, 1830, the royal physicians issued a bulletin, stating
that "t has pleased Almighty God to take from this world the King's most
excellent majesty." Most excellent majesty!! A son who threatened his
mother to make public the invalidity of her marriage; a lover utterly
regardless of the well-being of any of his mistresses; a bigamous
husband, who behaved most basely to his first wife, and acted the part
of a dishonorable scoundrel to the second; a brother at utter enmity
with the Duke of Kent; a son who sought to aggravate the madness of his
royal father; a cheat in gaming and racing. He dies because lust and
luxury have, through his lazy life, done their work on his bloated
carcass, and England sorrows for the King's "most excellent majesty!"
George IV. was a great King. Mrs. J. R. Greer, in her work on
"Quakerism," says that he once went to a woman's meeting in Quaker
dress. "His dress was all right; a gray silk gown, a brown cloth shawl,
a little white silk handkerchief with hemmed edge round his neck, and a
very well-poked Friend's bonnet, with the neatly-crimped border of his
clear muslin cap tied under the chin, completed his disguise." Royal
George was detected, but we are told that the Quakers, who recognized
their visitor, were careful to treat him with courtesy and deference!
In the ten years' reign, the official expenditure for George IV. and his
Royal Family was at the very least L16,000,000 sterling. Windsor Castle
cost L894,500, the Pavilion at Brighton is said to have cost a million,
and another half-million is alleged to have been expended on the famous
"Cottage." After the King's death his old clothes realized L15,000.
Thackeray says of him that he "never resisted any temptation; never had
a desire but he coddled it and pampered it; if he ever had any nerve,
he frittered it away among cooks, and tailors, and barbers, and
furniture-mongers, and opera-dancers.... all fiddling, and flowers,
and feasting, and flattery, and folly.... a monstrous image of pride,
vanity, and weakness."
Wallace says: "Monarchy, doubtless, has its advantages; but it is a
matter of serious reflection that under a government called free, among
a people called civilized, the claims of millions, and the contingent
horrors of a civil war, should be thus dependent upon the distempered
humors and paramount will of a single unit of the species."