Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/442

Rh 428 GEORGE I V and that their difference of opinion with Mr Perceval was I doned by the Government. The king’s unpopularity, great too glaring to be ignored. sively angry, and continued Perceval in oflice till that 1ninister’s assassination on .Iay 11 when he was succeeded by Lord Liverpool, after a negotiatioii in which the pro- position of entering the cabinet was again made to the Whigs and rejectel by them. In the military glories of the following years the prince regent had no share. When the allied sovereigns visited Enorland in 1814- he played the part of host to perfection. 780 great was his iiiipopii- Iirity at home that Iiisses were heard in the streets as he accompanied his guests into the city. The disgust which his proﬂigate and luxurious life caused amongst a people suffering from almost universal distress after the conclusion of the war rapidly increased. In 1817 the windows of the prince re<*ent’s carriage were broken as he was on his way to open parliament. O The death of George III. on January 29, 1820, gave to his son the title of kinrr without in any way alterinrr the position which he had ll:’ held for nine years. Indiizctly, however, this change brought out a manifestation of popular feeling such as his father had never been subjected to even in the early days of his reign, when mobs were burning jack-boots and petticoats. The relations between the new king and his wife unavoidably became the subject of public discussion. In 1806 a charge against the princess of having given birth to an illegitimate child had been con- clusively disproved, and the old king_had consequently re fused to withdraw her daughter, the Princess Charlotte, from her custody. When in the regency the prince was able to interfere, and prohibitel his wife from seeing her daughter more than once afortnirrht. On this in 1813 the princess addressed to her husbiind a letter setting fo,rth her coin- plaints, and receiving no answer published it in the -l[orm'n_7 C’/n'om'cle. The prince regent then referred the letter, together with all papers relating to the inquiry of 1808, to a body of twenty—tl1ree privy councillors for an opinion whether it was ﬁt that the restrictions on the inter- course between the Princess Charlotte and her motliershoiild continue in force. All except two answered as the regent wished them to answer. But if the oflicial leauino‘ was towards the husband, the Ieaiiiiig of the general publijc was towards the wife of a man whose own life had not been such as to justify him in complaining of her whom he had thrust from him Without a charge of any kind. Addresses of sympathy were sent up to the princess from the city of London and other public bodies. The discord again broke put in 181431 consequence of the exclusion of the princess rom court urine‘ the visit of the allied sovereicrns. In August iln thalt) yegr she left England, and after a liattle time too up ier a ode in Italy. The accession of Georee IV. brought matters to a crisis. He ordered that no prayer for his wife as queen should be admitted into the Prayer B-wok. She at once challenged the accusation which was implied in this omission by returning to Eng- land. On June 7 she arrived in London. Before she left the Continent she had been informed that proceedings would be taken against her for adultery ‘if she landed in England. Two years before, in 1818, commissioners had been sent to Milan to investigate charges against her, and their report, laid before the cabinet in 1819, was made the basis of the prosecution. On the day on which she arrived in London a ine_Ssage was _laid before both Houses recommending the flrlllllnatlllg evidence to parliament. A secret committee in the Iloiise of Lords after considering this evidence brought in a. report on which the prime minister founded a Bill of Pains and Penalties to divorce the queen and to deprive her of her royal title. The prince regent was e.'ces— I The Bill passed the three I as it had been before, was now greater than ever. Public opinion, without troubling itself to ask whether the queen was guilty or not, was roused to indignation by the spec- tacle of such a charge being brought by a husband who had thrust away his wife to fight the battle of life alone, without protection or support, and who, whilst surrounding her with spies to detect, perhaps to invent, her acts of inﬁdelity, was himself living in notorious adultery. In the following year (1821) she attempted to force her way into Westminster Abbey to take her place at the coronation. On this occasion the popular support failed her; and her death not long afterwards relieved the king from further annoy ance. Immediately after the death of the queen, the king set out for Ireland. He remained there but a short time, and his effusive declaration that rank, station, honours, were uothiiig compared with the exalted happiness of living in the hearts of his Irish subjects gained him a momentary popularity which was beyond his attainment in a country where he was better known. 1lis reception in Dublin encouraged him to attempt avisit to Edinburgh in the following year (August 1822 . Since Charles II. had come to play the sorry part of a covenaiiting king in 165'.) no sovereign of the country had set foot on Scottish soil. Sir Walter Scott took the leading part in organizing his reception. The enthusiasm with which he was received equalled, if it did not surpass, the enthusiasm with which he had been received in Dublin. But the qualities which enabled him to ﬁx the ﬂeeting sympatliies of the moment. ii ere not such as would enable him to exercise the influ- ence iii the goverimient which had been indubitably possessed by his father. He returned from ]1‘.dinburgli to face the question of the appointment of a secretary cf state which had been raised by the death of Lord Londonderi-_v, better known to the world by his earlier title of Castle- reagh. It was upon the question of the appointment of ministers that the battle between the Whigs and the king had been fought in the reign of George III. George 11’. had neither the ﬁrmness nor the moral weight to hold the reins which his father had grasped. He disliked Canning for liaviiig taken his wife’s side very much as his father had dis- liked Fox for taking his own. But Lord Liverpool insisted on C‘anning’s admission to oﬂice, and the king gave way. Taci tl_v and without a struggle the constitutional victory of the last reign was surrendered. But it was not Sl1l‘1‘(‘l1(lE1‘C(l to the same foe as that from which it had been won. The coalition ministry in 1784 rested on the great landowners aml the proprietors of rotten boroughs. Lord Liverpool’s ministry had hitherto not been very enlightened, and it supported itself to a great extent upon a narrow constituency. But it did appeal to public opinion in a way that the coalition did not, and what it wanted itself in popular support would be supplied by its successors. What one king had gained from a clique another gave up to the nation. Once more, on Lord Liverpool’s death in 1827, the same question was tried with the same result. The king not only disliked Canning personally, but he was opposed to Canning’s policy. Yet after some hesitation he accepted Canning as prime minister; and when, after C‘anning’s death and the short ministry of Lord Goderich, the king in 1828 autliorized the duke of Wellington to form a ministry, he was content to lay down the principle that the members of it were not expected to be unanimous on the Catholic question. When in 1829 the Vellington ministry unexpectedly proposed to introduce a Bill to remove the disabilities of the Catholics, he feebly strove against the proposal and quickly withdrew his opposition. The worii-out deb-auchee had neither the merit of acquiescing in the change nor the courage to readings with diminished majorities, and when on the third resist it. reading it obtained only a majority of nine, it was aban- George IV. died on June 26, 1830. He had rendered to