Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/192

 there resided at Lord Fauconberg's house, Bays Hill Lodge (, Diary, iv. 214). He returned to Windsor on 16 Aug., and on 16 Oct. got wet while walking. The next day he was taken ill, and on the 22nd signs of derangement appeared. However, he got better, and on the 24th held a levee, in order, he said, ‘to stop further lies and any fall of the stocks’ (Life of Pitt, i. 385). His mind dwelt on the loss of the American colonies (, iv. 20). While at Windsor on 5 Nov. he became delirious, and for a while it was thought that his life was in imminent danger. He suffered from intense cerebral irritation, which showed itself in sleeplessness and increasing garrulity. On the 29th he was removed by his physicians to Kew, the removal being effected by deception (, Diary, iv. 341). On 5 Dec. his physicians stated to the privy council that his disease was not incurable, but that it was impossible to say how long it might last. He was then put under the charge of Dr. Willis. It is said that before this date he was treated with brutality (, Hist. iii. 199, 207). The stories are probably greatly exaggerated, for they all seem to refer to a period of only five days, during which he was at Kew before Dr. Willis came there. (Mrs. Papendiek's account of the king's illness in ‘Court and Private Life,’ ii. 7–31, goes far to disprove, with one exception, p. 20, the stories of harsh usage; her narrative differs in some respects from that given by Madame d'Arblay.) He was, however, subjected to unnecessary restraints which tended to increase his mental irritation. Willis, who declared that his recovery at an early date was certain, changed this system, and soon gained complete control over him (Court and Cabinets, ii. 35). During his illness violent debates took place on the regency question [see under, , , ]. On 19 Feb. 1789 the chancellor announced that he was convalescent, and on 10 March he resumed his authority. His recovery was hailed with delight, and London was illuminated. He attended a public thanksgiving at St. Paul's on 23 April (Annual Register, 1789, p. 249;, ii. 83–90), but was still suffering from dejection and lassitude on 5 May. The undutiful conduct of the Prince of Wales and Frederick Augustus [q. v.], duke of York, caused much unhappiness in the royal family. On 25 June George, by his physicians' advice, left Windsor for Weymouth, where he resided at Gloucester Lodge. He was greeted with acclamations everywhere. In after years he constantly spent either the whole or some weeks of the summer at Weymouth. His life there was very simple. He bathed, yachted, rode, and made excursions, going this year to Lord Morley's at Saltram, 15–27 Aug., and visiting the ships at Plymouth. On 18 Sept. he returned to Windsor in complete health. On 21 Jan. 1790 an insane man threw a stone at him as he was going in state to open parliament (Annual Register, 1790, pp. 194, 205). During the summer, when there was some unusually hot weather (ib. p. 209), the state of the king's health caused some anxiety to his physicians, who endeavoured to keep him from dozing during the day and brooding over French affairs, and told the queen that she must devote herself entirely to him (, ii. 214–16). A signal proof of his determination to uphold Pitt was given in 1792, when he reluctantly agreed to dismiss Thurlow from the chancellorship, because Pitt found it impossible to work with him (Life of Pitt, ii. 149, 150).

The proceedings of the ‘Friends of the People’ and other revolutionary societies strengthened the king's feelings against Fox and the parliamentary section which sympathised with the French revolution (ib. App. xiv.). The general feeling of the country was with him, and was signified and excited by caricatures, one of which, by Gillray, published in July 1791, and entitled ‘The Hopes of the Party,’ represented the king as brought to the block by Fox and Sheridan, with Priestley assisting at his execution. He was gratified by the declaration of war against France in 1793 (ib. xvii.;, i. 136, 400), and received with ‘infinite pleasure’ the reports of the defeats of motions for peace. On 30 Jan. 1794 he held a review of Lord Howe's fleet at Spithead. He struggled hard to keep his son the Duke of York in command in the Low Countries, but Pitt insisted so strongly on the evils attending a division of command that, though ‘very much hurt,’ he at last agreed to his recall (Life of Pitt, iii. App. xxi.). Lord Fitzwilliam's Irish policy highly displeased him; it was overturning the ‘fabric that the wisdom of our forefathers esteemed necessary;’ the admission of Roman catholics to vote and office would be ‘to adopt measures to prevent which my family was invited to mount the throne in preference to the House of Savoy,’ and the proposal must have been instigated by a ‘desire to humiliate the old friends of the English government,’ or to pay ‘implicit obedience to the heated imagination of Mr. Burke’ (ib. xxx.). He thought that Fitzwilliam should be recalled. He consulted Lord Kenyon and Sir John Scott as to whether it would be consistent with his coronation oath to assent to an Irish Roman catholic relief bill; they answered that his oath did not prevent his