Page:A New General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 8.djvu/11



GEO

GEORGE (AUGUSTUS FREDERIC) IV., eldest child of George III., king of Great Britain, was born at the palace of St. James's, on the 12th of August, 1762, and was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester on the 17th of the same month. On the 26th of December, 1765, he was made a knight of the Garter. He was educated, along with his brother Frederic, afterwards duke of York, upon a plan of strict seclusion, under the care of Dr. Markham, afterwards archbishop of York, and of Dr. Cyril Jackson, who were appointed to their office in 1771, and who, on their resignation in 1776, were suc- ceeded by Dr. Hurd, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (afterwards bishop of Wor- cester), and by the Rev. William Arnald, of St. John's college, Cambridge. The two princes passed their period of pupil- age together, chiefly at Buckingham house, Kew, and Windsor, until Decem- ber 1780, when, on the departure of prince Frederic for Germany, the prince of Wales, now become legally his own master, began to appear much in the public eye. He at once chose for his political friends and associates the leaders of the Whig party, Fox, Sheridan, and others, who not only placed him in direct opposition to his father's govern- ment, but led him into a course of wasteful expenditure and fashionable dissipation, against which the severe discipline of his early training unhappily proved but a weak defence. About this time also he contracted a close intimacy with the due de Chartres, who afterwards gained an unenviable notoriety as duke of Orleans. In November 1783, a few months after his Whig associates had forced themselves into power, as the well-known Coalition Ministry, the prince took his seat in the House of Lords with great ceremony as duke of Cornwall. He had a short time before had Carlton-house assigned to him for a residence, with an allowance of 64,000/. per annum. In 1786 the prince's pecuniary embarrassments were brought under the notice of the House of Com- mons by Mr. Sheridan, and again in the following year by alderman Newnham, one of the members for London, on which occasion Mr. Fox declared, upon the highest authority, that there was no ground for a report which had gained general credit, that the prince had been for two years privately married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, a lady of the Roman Catholic persuasion, for whom his royal highness had conceived a strong attachment so early as the year 1781. The prince of Wales's connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert was then, and continued to be for many years after, a subject of general com- ment, and the lady, on being informed of Mr. Fox's declaration, is said to have insisted, but without effect, upon its being as publicly contradicted as it had been made. It was alleged, and generally believed, that the prince had been married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, both by a Protestant clergyman, and a Roman Catholic priest, although such a proceeding, even if it had taken place, could be productive of no legal effects, in consequence of the provisions of the Royal Marriage Act. The result of this parliamentary discussion was, that an accommodation took place. The king gave his consent to an annual addition to his son's income of 10,000/., and to a grant of 180.000/. for the payment of his royal highness's debts. In October in the following j'ear (1788) the king began to exhibit symptoms of alienation of mind, which led to discussions in parliament respecting the person upon whom the exercise of the royal power devolved of right. On this occasion Mr. Fox con- tended that the right clearly appertained to the heir apparent, being of full uge and capacity ; but the opinion of Mr. Pitt, that it was for parliament to deter-