Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/441

Rh down after the death of the Princess Amelia, his favourite child. The remaining nine years of his life were passed in insanity and blindness, and when he died on January 29, 1820, in his eighty-second year, no political rcsults were to be anticipated. George III. had nine sons. After his successor came Frederick, duke of York and Albany (1703—1827) ; William Henry, duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV. (1765—1837) 5 Edward Augustus, duke of Kent (17 67—1825), father of Queen Victoria; Ernest A ngnstus, duke of Cumberland, afterwards king of Hanover (1771—1851) ; Augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex (1773—1813); Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cam- bridge (1774--1850); Octavius (1779—1783); Alfred (1780—1782). He had also six daughters—Charlotte Augusta (1766—1816), married in 1797 to Frederick, king of Wiirtemberg ; Augusta Sophia (1768—1840) ; Elizabeth (17 70—1840), married Frederick, landgrave of I-Iesse-Hon‘iburg, 1818 ; Mary (1776—1857), married to William Frederick, duke of Gloucester, 1816; Sophia (1777—1818) ; Amelia (1783-1810).  GEORGE IV. (George Augustus Frederick, 1702–1830), lived long enough to strip the crown of the leadership of the nation which his father had won for it. Born on August 12, 17 62, he was noted in the years of his early manhood for good looks, for ease of carriage, and gracious- ness of manner. He soon plunged into the whirl of sensual excitement. His life was passed in the grossest proﬂigacy. He was false as well as licentious His word was never to be trusted. Not even an occasional gleam of brightness lights 11p the dark picture of his career. If he now and then ﬂung to a dependant a kindly word which cost him nothing, no serious project of well-doing ever occupied his thoughts. Politics had no attraction for him except so far as changes of Government might minister to his ease, or bring him money to bc squandered in some new scheme of folly. Such a character was probably beyond the reach of any education. But it is certain that the education which he re- ceived in the strict and formal domestic circle of his parents was only ﬁtted to repel him from the path of virtue. His father became to him the type of uninteresting formality. He gladly sought the society of his father’s Whig oppo— nents, and was initiated by Fox and Sheridan in the vices of the fashionable world. In 1783 he naturally supported the coalition ministry which his father detested, and the coalition ministry in return proposed to raise his income from £50,000 to £100,000. The king saved the ministry from committing one more blunder in its career by refusing to sanction the proposition. In 1786 the prince’s friends urged Pitt to increase the allowance, but Pitt refused to do anything of the kind. All the world knew that the money would be frittered away at the gambling table or in some other equally disreputable way. Applying to the king and getting a distinct refusal, the prince sold his horses and carriages, shut up his house, and dismissed his servants. As it was well known that these were not the expenses which had brought him to distress, he was only laughed at for his pains. A lower depth was soon reached. The prince fell in love with Mrs Fitzherbert who had been twice a widow at twenty—ﬁve. She was ready to marry him, but she would yield to him on no other terms. She was a Roman Catholic, and a marriage by the heir of the crown with a Roman Catholic forfeited his succession by the Act of Settlement. Nor, by the Royal Marriage Act, could he legally contract marriage even with a Protestant without his father’s consent, unless at the end of a year after formal notice had been given, and then only if parliament had not expressed its disapprobation. Believing truly that he could contract no legal marriage with Mrs Fitzherbert. he was quite ready to go through the form of marriage. Mrs F itzherbert, holding that the performance of the ceremony by a priest of her church was of sacramental efﬁcacy, was indifferent to the legality of the proceeding. The marriage took place. Not long afterwards, in April 1787, Alderman Newenham moved in thc House of Commons for a grant in relief of the prince. In the course of debate allusion was made to a marriage which might bring in question the succession. Fox went to the prince, and was assured by him that the marriage had never even formally taken place. Fox, deceived by his apparent openness, came down to the House and assured the Commons that the whole story was a malicious falsehood. The next day a friend of Fox’s opened his eyes to the trick which had been played on him. “I see by the papers, Mr Fox,” he said, “ that you have denied the fact of the marriage of the prince of Wales with Mrs Fitzherbert. You have been misinformed. I was present at that marriage.” The prince was not content with his original falsehood. He threw out hints to his friends that Fox had exceeded his instructions. He led Mrs Fitzherbert to believe that Foxhad uttered the denial unsnggested. “ Only conceive, Maria,” he said to her, “what Fox did yesterday. He went down to the House and denied that you and I were man and wife.” The denial however cleared away for the moment one cause of the prince’s nnpopularity. With the consent of the Government he received an addition of £10,000 to his income, £161,000 to pay his debts, and £20,000 for the repairs of Carlton House. The temporary insanity of the king in 1788 again brought the prince’s name promir nently before the public. Fox maintained and Pitt denied that the prince of Wales, as the heir-apparent, had a right to assume the regency independently of any parliamentary vote. Pitt, with the support of both Houses, proposed to confer upon him the regency with certain restrictions. The recovery of the king in February 1789 put an end to the prince’s hopes. During the king’s illness he had been in the habit of amusing his companions by mimicry of his unfortunate father. The disgust caused by his behaviour had doubtless some part in the enthusiasm with which the king was received when he went in state to St Paul’s to return thanks for his recovery. In 1795 the prince married Caroline of Brunswick, because his father would not pay his debts on any other terms. Her behaviour was light and tlippant, and he was brutal and unloving. The ill- assorted pair soon parted, and soon after the birth of their only child, the Princess Charlotte, they were formally separated. With great unwillingness the House of Com- mons voted fresh sums of money to pay the prince’s debts. In 1811 the prince at last became regent in consequence of his father’s deﬁnite insanity. N 0 one doubted at that time that it was in his power to change the ministry at his pleasure. He had always lived in close connexion with the Whig opposition, and he now empowered Lord Grenville to form a ministry. There soon arose differences of opinion between them on the answer to be returned to the address of the Houses, and the prince regent then informed the prime minister, Mr Perceval, that he should continue the existing ministry in ofﬁce. The ground alleged by him for this de- sertion of his friends was the fear lest his father’s recovery might be rendered impossible if he should come to hear of the advent of the Opposition to power. Lord Wellesley’s resignation in February 1812 made the reconstruction of the ministry inevitable. As there was no longer any hope of the king’s recovery, the former objection to aWhig administration no longer existed. Instead of taking the course of inviting the Whigs to take ofﬁce, he asked them to join the existing administration. The Whig leaders however refused to join, on the ground that the question of the Catholic disabilities was too important to be shelved,