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 George III had long been blind and insane when he died in 1820, and it was the eldest of his seven sons who became King in that year as George IV. This man had been acting as Prince Regent for his insane father since 1810. He was naturally clever and had some kind of selfish good nature, but he was mean, cowardly, and an incredible liar. Some famous lies he told so often that at last he got to believe them himself; for instance, he was fond of saying that he had been present at the battle of Waterloo, whereas he had never seen a shot fired in his life.

He was succeeded in 1830 by a stupid honest old gentleman, his brother, William IV, who, as a young man, had been nicknamed ‘Silly Billy’. There was no harm in King William, but there was little active good, and so the influence of the Crown, both upon private and public life, was very slight when he died in 1837. His heir was his niece Victoria, a girl of eighteen of whom little was then known, but of whose goodness and high spirit stories were already being told.

‘Who will be King, Mamma,’ she said, when she was twelve years old, ‘when Uncle William dies?’ ‘You will be queen, my dear.’ ‘Then I must be a very good little girl now,’ she replied. In this wonderful lady the spirit of all her greatest ancestors seemed to have revived, the burning English patriotism of the Tudors, the Scottish heart of the Stuarts, the courage of Edward Ill, the wisdom of Edward I, Henry Il and Alfred. And all were softened and beautified by womanly love and tenderness. No sovereign ever so unweariedly set herself to win the love of her people, to be the servant of her people. And her people rewarded her with a love that she had more than deserved.