Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

There can be no reasonable doubt[1] that Pitt not only took advantage of the king's intervention in the Lords, but was cognizant of the intrigue before it was actually carried out. It was upon him, too, that the weight of reconciling the country to an administration formed under such circumstances lay. The general result, so far as George III. was concerned, was that to all outward appearance he had won the great battle of his life. It was he who was to appoint the prime minister, not any clique resting on a parliamentary support. But the circumstances under which the victory was won were such as to place the constitution in a position very different from that in which it would have been if the victory had been gained earlier in the reign. Intrigue there was indeed in 1783 and 1784 as there had been twenty years before. Parliamentary support was conciliated by Pitt by the grant of royal favours as it had been in the days of Bute. The actual blow was struck by a most questionable message to individual peers. But the main result of the whole political situation was that George III. had gone a long way towards disentangling the reality of parliamentary government from its accidents. His ministry finally stood because it had appealed to the constituencies against their representatives. Since then it has properly become a constitutional axiom that no such appeal should be made by the crown itself. But it may reasonably be doubted whether any one but the king was at that time capable of making the appeal. Lord Shelburne, the leader of the ministry expelled by the coalition, was unpopular in the country, and the younger Pitt had not had time to make his great abilities known beyond a limited circle. The real question for the constitutional historian to settle is not whether under ordinary circumstances a king is the proper person to place himself really as well as nominally at the head of the government; but whether under the special circumstances which existed in 1783 it was not better that the king should call upon the people to support him, than that government should be left in the hands of men who rested their power on close boroughs and the dispensation of patronage, without looking beyond the walls of the House of Commons for support.

That the king gained credit far beyond his own deserts by the glories of Pitt's ministry is beyond a doubt. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that his own example of domestic propriety did much to strengthen the position of his minister. It is true that that life was insufferably dull. No gleams of literary or artistic taste lightened it up. The dependants of the court became inured to dull routine unchequered by loving sympathy. The sons of the household were driven by the sheer weariness of such an existence into the coarsest profligacy. But all this was not visible from a distance. The tide of moral and religious improvement which had set in in England since the days of Wesley brought popularity to a king who was faithful to his wife, in the same way that the tide of manufacturing industry and scientific progress brought popularity to the minister who in some measure translated into practice the principles of the _Wealth of Nations_.

Nor were there wanting subjects of importance beyond the circle of politics in which George III. showed a lively interest. The voyages of discovery which made known so large a part of the islands and coasts of the Pacific Ocean received from him a warm support. In the early days of the Royal Academy, its finances were strengthened by liberal grants from the privy purse. His favourite pursuit, however, was farming. When Arthur Young was issuing his _Annals of Agriculture_, he was supplied with information by the king, under the assumed name of Mr Ralph Robinson, relating to a farm at Petersham.

The life of the king was suddenly clouded over. Early in his reign, in 1765, he had been out of health, and--though the fact was studiously concealed at the time--symptoms of mental aberration were even then to be perceived. In October 1788 he was again out of health, and in the beginning of the following month his insanity was beyond a doubt. Whilst Pitt and Fox were contending in the House of Commons over the terms on which the regency should be committed to the prince of Wales, the king was a helpless victim to the ignorance of physicians and the brutalities of his servants. At last Dr Willis, who had made himself a name by prescribing gentleness instead of rigour in the treatment of the insane, was called in. Under his more humane management the king rapidly recovered. Before the end of February 1789 he was able to write to Pitt thanking him for his warm support of his interests during his illness. On the 23rd of April he went in person to St Paul's to return thanks for his recovery.

The popular enthusiasm which burst forth around St Paul's was but a foretaste of a popularity far more universal. The French Revolution frightened the great Whig landowners till they made their peace with the king. Those who thought that the true basis of government was aristocratical were now of one mind with those who thought that the true basis of government was monarchical; and these two classes were joined by a far larger multitude which had no political ideas whatever, but which had a moral horror of the guillotine. As Elizabeth had once been the symbol of resistance to Spain, George was now the symbol of resistance to France. He was not, however, more than the symbol. He allowed Pitt to levy taxes and incur debt, to launch armies to defeat, and to prosecute the English imitators of French revolutionary courses. At last, however, after the Union with Ireland was accomplished, he learned that Pitt was planning a scheme to relieve the Catholics from the disabilities under which they laboured. The plan was revealed to him by the chancellor, Lord Loughborough, a selfish and intriguing politician who had served all parties in turn, and who sought to forward his own interests by falling in with the king's prejudices. George III. at once took up the position from which he never swerved. He declared that to grant concessions to the Catholics involved a breach of his coronation oath. No one has ever doubted that the king was absolutely convinced of the serious nature of the objection. Nor can there be any doubt that he had the English people behind him. Both in his peace ministry and in his war ministry Pitt had taken his stand on royal favour and on popular support. Both failed him alike now, and he resigned office at once. The shock to the king's mind was so great that it brought on a fresh attack of insanity. This time, however, the recovery was rapid. On the 14th of March 1801 Pitt's resignation was formally accepted, and the late speaker, Mr Addington, was installed in office as prime minister.

The king was well pleased with the change. He was never capable of appreciating high merit in any one; and he was unable to perceive that the question on which Pitt had resigned was more than an improper question, with which he ought never to have meddled. "Tell him," he said, in directing his physician to inform Pitt of his restoration to health, "I am now quite well, quite recovered from my illness; but what has he not to answer for, who has been the cause of my having been ill at all?" Addington was a minister after his own mind. Thoroughly honest and respectable, with about the same share of abilities as was possessed by the king himself, he was certainly not likely to startle the world by any flights of genius. But for one circumstance Addington's ministry would have lasted long. So strong was the reaction against the Revolution that the bulk of the nation was almost as suspicious of genius as the king himself. Not only was there no outcry for legislative reforms, but the very idea of reform was unpopular. The country gentlemen were predominant in parliament, and the country gentlemen as a body looked upon Addington with respect and affection. Such a minister was therefore admirably suited to preside over affairs at home in the existing state of opinion. But those who were content with inaction at home would not be content with inaction abroad. In time of peace Addington would have been popular for a season. In time of war even his warmest admirers could not say that he was the man to direct armies in the most terrible struggle which had ever been conducted by an English government.

For the moment this difficulty was not felt. On the 1st of October 1801, preliminaries of peace were signed between England and France, to be converted into the definitive peace of Amiens on the 27th of March 1802. The ruler of France was now Napoleon Bonaparte, and few persons in England believed that he had any real purpose of bringing his aggressive violence to an end. "Do you know what I call this peace?" said the king; "an experimental peace, for it is nothing else. But it was unavoidable."

The king was right. On the 18th of May 1803 the declaration of war was laid before parliament. The war was accepted by all classes as inevitable, and the French preparations for an invasion of England roused the whole nation to a glow of enthusiasm only equalled by that felt when the Armada threatened its shores. On the 26th of October the king reviewed the London volunteers in Hyde Park. He found himself the centre of a great national movement with which he heartily sympathized, and which heartily sympathized with him.

On the 12th of February 1804 the king's mind was again affected. When he recovered, he found himself in the midst of a ministerial crisis. Public feeling allowed but one opinion to prevail in the country--that Pitt, not Addington, was the proper man to conduct the administration in time of war. Pitt was anxious to form an administration on a broad basis, including Fox and all prominent leaders of both parties. The king would not hear of the admission of Fox. His dislike of him was personal as well as political, as he knew that Fox had had a great share in drawing the prince of Wales into a life of profligacy. Pitt accepted the king's terms, and formed an administration in which he was the only man of real ability. Eminent men, such as Lord Grenville, refused to join a ministry from which the king had excluded a great statesman on purely personal grounds.

The whole question was reopened on Pitt's death on the 23rd of January 1806. This time the king gave way. The ministry of All the Talents, as it was called, included Fox amongst its members. At first the king was observed to appear depressed at the necessity of surrender. But Fox's charm of manner soon gained upon him. "Mr Fox," said the king, "I little thought that you and I should ever meet again in this place; but I have no desire to look back upon old grievances, and you may rest assured I never shall remind you of them." On the 13th of September Fox died, and it was not long before the king and the ministry were openly in collision. The ministry proposed a measure enabling all subjects of the crown to serve in the army and navy in spite of religious disqualifications. The king objected even to so slight a modification of the laws against the Catholics and Dissenters, and the ministers consented to drop the bill. The king asked more than this. He demanded a written and positive engagement that this ministry would never, under any circumstances, propose to him "any measure of concession to the Catholics, or even connected with the question." The ministers very properly refused to bind themselves for the future. They were consequently turned out of office, and a new ministry was formed with the duke of Portland as first lord of the treasury and Mr Perceval as its real leader. The spirit of the new ministry was distinct hostility to the Catholic claims. On the 27th of April 1807 a dissolution of parliament was announced, and a majority in favour of the king's ministry was returned in the elections which speedily followed.

The elections of 1807, like the elections of 1784, gave the king the mastery of the situation. In other respects they were the counterpart of one another. In 1784 the country declared, though perhaps without any clear conception of what it was doing, for a wise and progressive policy. In 1807 it declared for an unwise and retrogressive policy, with a very clear understanding of what it meant. It is in his reliance upon the prejudices and ignorance of the country that the constitutional significance of the reign of George III. appears. Every strong government derives its power from its representative character. At a time when the House of Commons was less really representative than at any other, a king was on the throne who represented the country in its good and bad qualities alike, in its hatred of revolutionary violence, its moral sturdiness, its contempt of foreigners, and its defiance of all ideas which were in any way strange. Therefore it was that his success was not permanently injurious to the working of the constitution as the success of Charles I. would have been. If he were followed by a king less English than himself, the strength of representative power would pass into other hands than those which held the sceptre.

The overthrow of the ministry of All the Talents was the last political act of constitutional importance in which George III. took part. The substitution of Perceval for Portland as the nominal head of the ministry in 1809 was not an event of any real significance, and in 1811 the reign practically came to an end. The king's reason finally broke down after the death of the princess Amelia, his favourite child; and the prince of Wales (see GEORGE IV.) became prince regent. The remaining nine years of George III.'s life were passed in insanity and blindness, and he died on the 29th of January 1820.

His wife, Charlotte Sophia (1744-1818), was a daughter of Charles Louis of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1816), and was married to the king in London on the 8th of September 1761. After a peaceful and happy married life the queen died at Kew on the 17th of November 1818.

George III. had nine sons. After his successor came Frederick, duke of York and Albany (1763-1827); William Henry, duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV. (1765-1837); Edward Augustus, duke of Kent (1767-1825), father of Queen Victoria; Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland, afterwards king of Hanover (1771-1851); Augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex (1773-1843); Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge (1774-1850); Octavius (1779-1783); Alfred (1780-1782). He had also six daughters--Charlotte Augusta (1766-1828), married in 1797 to Frederick, afterwards king of Wurttemberg; Augusta Sophia (1768-1840); Elizabeth (1770-1840), married Frederick, landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, 1818; Mary (1776-1857), married to William Frederick, duke of Gloucester, 1816; Sophia (1777-1848); Amelia (1783-1810). (S. R. G.)

The numerous contemporary memoirs and diaries are full of the best
material for a picture of George III.'s reign, apart from the standard
histories. Thackeray's _Four Georges_ must not be trusted so far as
historical judgment is concerned; Jesse's _Memoirs of the Life and
Reign of George III._ (2nd ed., 1867) is chiefly concerned with
personalities. See also Beckles Willson, _George III., as Man, Monarch
and Statesman_ (1907).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] See Lord Fitzmaurice's _Life of Shelburne_, iii. 393.

GEORGE IV. [George Augustus Frederick] (1762-1830), king of Great Britain and Ireland, eldest son of George III., was born at St James's Palace, London, on the 12th of August 1762. He was naturally gifted, was well taught in the classics, learnt to speak French, Italian and German fluently, and had considerable taste for music and the arts; and in person he was remarkably handsome. His tutor, Bishop Richard Hurd, said of him when fifteen years old that he would be "either the most polished gentleman or the most accomplished blackguard in Europe--possibly both"; and the latter prediction was only too fully justified. Reaction from the strict and parsimonious style of his parents' domestic life, which was quite out of touch with the gaiety and extravagance of London "society," had its natural effect in plunging the young prince of Wales, flattered and courted as he was, into a whirl of pleasure-seeking. At the outset his disposition was brilliant and generous, but it was essentially unstable, and he started even before he came of age on a career of dissipation which in later years became wholly profligate. He had an early amour with the actress Mary ("Perdita") Robinson, and in the choice of his friends he opposed and annoyed the king, with whom he soon became (and always remained) on the worst of terms, by associating himself with Fox and Sheridan and the Whig party. When in 1783 he came of age, a compromise between the coalition ministry and the king secured him an income of L50,000 from the Civil List, and L60,000 was voted by parliament to pay his debts and start his separate establishment at Carlton House. There, under the auspices of C.J. Fox and Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, he posed as a patron of Whig politics and a leader in all the licence and luxury of gay society--the "First gentleman in Europe," as his flatterers described him as years went on. And at this early age he fell seriously in love with the famous Mrs Fitzherbert.

His long connexion with this lady may most conveniently be summarized here. It was indeed for some time the one redeeming and restraining factor in his life, though her devotion and self-sacrificing conduct were in marked contrast with his unscrupulousness and selfishness. Mary Anne (or as she always called herself, Maria) Fitzherbert (1756-1837) was the daughter of Walter Smythe, the second son of Sir John Smythe, Bart., of Acton Burnell Park, Shropshire, and came of an old Roman Catholic family. Educated at a French convent, she married first in 1775 Edward Weld, who died within the year, and secondly in 1778 Thomas Fitzherbert, who died in 1781, leaving his widow with a comfortable fortune. A couple of years later she became a prominent figure in London society, and her beauty and charm at once attracted the young prince, who wooed her with all the ardour of a violent passion. She herself was distracted between her desire to return his love, her refusal to contemplate becoming his mistress, and her knowledge that state reasons made a regular marriage impossible. The Act of Settlement (1689) entailed his forfeiture of the succession if he married a Roman Catholic, apart from the fact that the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 made any marriage illegal without the king's consent, which was out of the question. But after trying for a while to escape his attentions, her scruples were overcome. In Mrs Fitzherbert's eyes the state law was, after all, not everything. To a Roman Catholic, and equally to any member of the Christian church, a formal marriage ceremony would be ecclesiastically and sacramentally binding; and after a period of passionate importunacy on his part they were secretly married by the Rev. R. Burt, a clergyman of the Church of England, on the 15th of December 1785.[1] There is no doubt as to Mrs Fitzherbert's belief, supported by ecclesiastical considerations, in her correct and binding, though admittedly illegal, relationship to the prince as his canonical wife; and though that relationship was not, and for political reasons could not be, publicly admitted, it was in fact treated by their intimates on the footing of a morganatic marriage. The position nevertheless was inevitably a false one; Mrs Fitzherbert had promised not to publish the evidence of the marriage (which, according to a strict interpretation of the Act of Settlement might have barred succession to the crown), and the rumours which soon got about led the prince to allow it to be disavowed by his political friends. He lived in the most extravagant way, became heavily involved in debt, and as the king would not assist him, shut up Carlton House, and went to live with Mrs Fitzherbert at Brighton. In 1787 a proposal was brought before the House of Commons by Alderman Newnham for a grant in relief of his embarrassments. It was on this occasion that Fox publicly declared in the House of Commons, as on the prince's own authority, in answer to allusions to the marriage, that the story was a malicious falsehood. A little later Sheridan, in deference to Mrs Fitzherbert's pressure and to the prince's own compunction, made a speech guardedly modifying Fox's statement; but though in private the denial was understood, it effected its object, the House voting a grant of L221,000 to the prince and the king adding L10,000 to his income; and Mrs Fitzherbert, who at first thought of severing her connexion with the prince, forgave him. Their union--there was no child of the marriage--was brutally broken off in June 1794 by the prince, when further pressure of debts (and the influence of a new Egeria in Lady Jersey) made him contemplate his official marriage with princess Caroline; in 1800, however, it was renewed, after urgent pleading on the prince's part, and after Mrs Fitzherbert had obtained a formal decision from the pope pronouncing her to be his wife, and sanctioning her taking him back; her influence over him continued till shortly before the prince became regent, when his relations with Lady Hertford brought about a final separation. For the best years of his life he had at least had in Mrs Fitzherbert the nearest approach to a real wife, and this was fully recognized by the royal family.[2] But his dissolute nature was entirely selfish, and his various liaisons ended in the dominance of Lady Conyngham, the "Lady Steward" of his household, from 1821 till his death.

Notorious as the prince of Wales had become by 1788, it was in that year that his father's first attack of insanity made his position in the state one of peculiar importance. 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, however, to the prince's hopes. In 1794 the prince consented to a marriage with a German Protestant princess, because his father would not pay his debts on any other terms, and his cousin, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, was brought over from Germany and married to him in 1795. Her behaviour was light and flippant, 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 Commons voted fresh sums of money to pay the prince's debts.

In 1811 he at last became prince regent in consequence of his father's definite insanity. No 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 desertion 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 a Whig 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, and that their difference of opinion with Mr Perceval was too glaring to be ignored. The prince regent was excessively angry, and continued Perceval in office till that minister's assassination on the 11th of May, when he was succeeded by Lord Liverpool, after a negotiation in which the proposition of entering the cabinet was again made to the Whigs and rejected by them. In the military glories of the following years the prince regent had no share. When the allied sovereigns visited England in 1814, he played the part of host to perfection. So great was his unpopularity at home that hisses 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 regent's carriage were broken as he was on his way to open parliament.

The death of George III. on the 29th of January 1820, gave to his son the title of king without in any way altering the position which he had now held for nine years. Indirectly, 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 conclusively disproved, and the old king had consequently refused to withdraw her daughter, the princess Charlotte, from her custody. When in the regency the prince was able to interfere, and prohibited his wife from seeing her daughter more than once a fortnight. On this, in 1813, the princess addressed to her husband a letter setting forth her complaints, and receiving no answer published it in the _Morning Chronicle_. The prince regent then referred the letter, together with all papers relating to the inquiry of 1806, to a body of twenty-three privy councillors for an opinion whether it was fit that the restrictions on the intercourse between the princess Charlotte and her mother should continue in force. All except two answered as the regent wished them to answer. But if the official leaning was towards the husband, the leaning of the general public 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 out in 1814 in consequence of the exclusion of the princess from court during the visit of the allied sovereigns. In August in that year she left England, and after a little time took up her abode in Italy. The accession of George IV. brought matters to a crisis. He ordered that no prayer for his wife as queen should be admitted into the Prayer Book. She at once challenged the accusation which was implied in this omission by returning to England. On the 7th of June 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 message was laid before both Houses recommending the criminating evidence to parliament. A secret committee in the House 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 bill passed the three readings with diminished majorities, and when on the third reading it obtained only a majority of nine, it was abandoned by the Government. The king's unpopularity, great 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 spectacle 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 notorious for his adulterous life. 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 in August relieved the king from further annoyance.

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 nothing 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. His reception in Dublin encouraged him to attempt a visit to Edinburgh in the following year (August 1822). Since Charles II. had come to play the sorry part of a covenanting king in 1650 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 sympathies of the moment were not such as would enable him to exercise the influence in the government which had been indubitably possessed by his father. He returned from Edinburgh to face the question of the appointment of a secretary of state which had been raised by the death of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh). 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 IV. had neither the firmness nor the moral weight to hold the reins which his father had grasped. He disliked Canning for having taken his wife's side very much as his father had disliked Fox for taking his own. But Lord Liverpool insisted on Canning's admission to office, and the king gave way. Tacitly and without a struggle the constitutional victory of the last reign was surrendered. But it was not surrendered to the same foe as that from which it had been won. The coalition ministry in 1784 rested on the great landowners and 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 Canning's death and the short ministry of Lord Goderich, the king in 1828 authorized 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 Wellington 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 worn-out debauchee had neither the merit of acquiescing in the change nor the courage to resist it.

George IV. died on the 26th of June 1830, and was succeeded by his brother, the duke of Clarence, as William IV. His only child by Queen Caroline, the princess Charlotte Augusta, was married in 1816 to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians, and died in childbirth on the 6th of November 1817.

George IV. was a bad king, and his reign did much to disgust the
country with the Georgian type of monarchy; but libertine and
profligate as he became, the abuse which has been lavished on his
personal character has hardly taken into sufficient consideration the
loose morals of contemporary society, the political position of the
Whig party, and his own ebullient temperament. Thackeray, in his _Four
Georges_, is frequently unfair in this respect. The just condemnation
of the moralist and satirist requires some qualification in the light
of the picture of the period handed down in the memoirs and diaries of
the time, such as Greville's, Croker's, Creevey's, Lord Holland's,
Lord Malmesbury's, &c. Among later works see _The First Gentleman of
Europe_, by Lewis Melville (1906), a book for the general reader.
(S. R. G.; H. Ch.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For a discussion of the ecclesiastical validity of the marriage
see W.H. Wilkins, _Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV._ (1905), chs. vi.
and vii.

[2] Mrs Fitzherbert herself, after her final separation from the
prince, with an annuity of L6000 a year, lived an honoured and more
or less retired life mainly at Brighton, a town which owed its rapid
development in fashionable popularity and material wealth to its
selection by the prince and herself as a residence from the earliest
years of their union; and there she died, seven years after the death
of George IV., in 1837. William IV. on his accession offered to
create her a duchess, but she declined; she accepted, however, his
permission to put her servants in royal livery. William IV. in fact
did all he could, short of a public acknowledgment (which the duke of
Wellington opposed on state grounds), to recognize her position as
his brother's widow. Charles Greville, writing of her after her
death, says in his _Diary_, "She was not a clever woman, but of a
very noble spirit, disinterested, generous, honest and affectionate."
The actual existence of a marriage tie and the documentary evidence
of her rights were not definitely established for many years; but in
1905 a sealed packet, deposited at Coutts's bank in 1833, was at
length opened by royal permission, and the marriage certificate and
other conclusive proofs therein contained were published in Mr W.H.
Wilkins's _Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV_. In 1796 the prince had
made a remarkable will in Mrs Fitzherbert's favour, which he gave her
in 1799, and it is included among these documents (now in the private
archives at Windsor). In this he speaks of her emphatically
throughout as "my wife." It also contained directions that at his
death a locket with her miniature, which he always wore, should be
interred with him; and Mrs Fitzherbert was privately assured, on the
duke of Wellington's authority, that when the king was buried at
Windsor the miniature was on his breast.

GEORGE V. [GEORGE FREDERICK ERNEST ALBERT], king of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, emperor of India (1865- ), second son of King Edward VII., was born at Marlborough House, London, on the 3rd of June 1865. When four years old, he and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, two years his senior, were placed under the tutorship of John Neale Dalton, then curate of Sandringham. In 1877 the two princes became naval cadets on the "Britannia" at Spithead, where they passed through the ordinary curriculum, and in 1879 they joined H.M.S. "Bacchante" under the command of Captain Lord Charles Scott, making a voyage to the West Indies, in the course of which they were rated midshipmen. After a month at home in 1880 they returned to the ship to make another prolonged cruise in H.M.S. "Bacchante," in the course of which they visited South America, South Africa, Australia, the Fiji Islands, Japan, Ceylon, Egypt, Palestine and Greece. A narrative of this voyage, _The Cruise of H.M.S. "Bacchante_," compiled from the letters, diaries and notebooks of the princes, was published in 1886. At the close of this tour in 1882 the brothers separated. Prince George, who remained in the naval service, was appointed to H.M.S. "Canada," commanded by Captain Durrant, on the North American and West Indian station, and was promoted sub-lieutenant. On his return home he passed through the Royal Naval College at Greenwich and the gunnery and torpedo schools, being promoted lieutenant in 1885. A year later he was appointed to H.M.S. "Thunderer" of the Mediterranean squadron, and was subsequently transferred to H.M.S. "Dreadnaught" and H.M.S. "Alexandra." In 1889 he joined the flagship of the Channel squadron, H.M.S. "Northumberland," and in that year was in command of torpedo boat No. 79 for the naval manoeuvres. In 1890 he was put in command of the gunboat H.M.S. "Thrush" for service on the North American and West Indian station. After his promotion as commander in 1891 he commissioned H.M.S. "Melampus," the command of which he relinquished on the death of his brother, Albert Victor, the duke of Clarence, in January 1892, since his duties as eventual heir to the crown precluded him from devoting himself exclusively to the navy. He was promoted captain in 1893, rear-admiral in 1901, and vice-admiral in 1903. He was created duke of York, earl of Inverness, and Baron Killarney in 1892, and on the 6th of July 1893 he married Princess Victoria Mary (b. 26th May 1867), daughter of Francis, duke of Teck, and Princess Mary Adelaide, duchess of Teck, daughter of Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge. Their eldest son, Prince Edward Albert, was born at White Lodge, Richmond, on the 23rd of June 1894; Prince Albert Frederick George was born at Sandringham on the 14th of December 1895; Princess Victoria Alexandra on the 25th of April 1897; Prince Henry William Frederick Albert on the 31st of March 1900; Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund on the 20th of December 1902; and Prince John Charles Francis on the 12th of July 1905. The duke and duchess of York visited Ireland in 1899, and it had been arranged before the death of Queen Victoria that they should make a tour in the colonies. On the accession of King Edward VII. (1901) this plan was confirmed. They sailed in the "Ophir" on the 16th of March 1901, travelling by the ordinary route, and landed at Melbourne in May, when they opened the first parliament of the Commonwealth. They then proceeded to New Zealand, returning by way of South Africa and Canada. An official account of the tour was published by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace as _The Web of Empire_ (1902). In November 1901 the duke was created prince of Wales. On the death of Edward VII. (May 6, 1910) he succeeded to the Crown as George V., his consort taking the style of Queen Mary.

GEORGE V., king of Hanover (1819-1878), was the only son of Ernest Augustus, king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland, and consequently a grandson of the English king George III. Born in Berlin on the 27th of May 1819, his youth was passed in England and in Berlin until 1837, when his father became king of Hanover and he took up his residence in that country. He lost the sight of one eye during a childish illness, and the other by an accident in 1833. Being thus totally blind there were doubts whether he was qualified to succeed to the government of Hanover; but his father decided that he should do so, as the law of the dissolved empire only excluded princes who were born blind. This decision was a fatal one to the dynasty. Both from his father and from his maternal uncle, Charles Frederick, prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1785-1837), one of the most influential men at the Prussian court, George had learned to take a very high and autocratic view of royal authority. His blindness prevented him from acquiring the shrewdness and knowledge of the world which had assisted his father, and he easily fell into the hands of unwise, and perhaps dishonest and disloyal, advisers. A man of deep religious feeling, he formed a fantastic conception of the place assigned to the house of Guelph in the divine economy, and had ideas of founding a great Guelph state in Europe. It is, therefore, not surprising that from the time of his accession in November 1851 he was constantly engaged in disputes with his _Landtag_ or parliament, and was consequently in a weak and perilous position when the crisis in the affairs of Germany came in 1866. Having supported Austria in the diet of the German confederation in June 1866, he refused, contrary to the wishes of his parliament, to assent to the Prussian demand that Hanover should observe an unarmed neutrality during the war. As a result his country and his capital were at once occupied by the Prussians, to whom his army surrendered on the 29th of June 1866, and in the following September Hanover was formally annexed by Prussia. From his retreat at Hietzing near Vienna, George appealed in vain to the powers of Europe; and supported by a large number of his subjects, an agitation was carried on which for a time caused some embarrassment to Prussia. All these efforts, however, to bring about a restoration were unavailing, and the king passed the remainder of his life at Gmunden in Austria, or in France, refusing to the last to be reconciled with the Prussian government. Whilst visiting Paris for medical advice he died in that city on the 12th of June 1878, and was buried in St George's chapel, Windsor. In February 1843 he had married Marie, daughter of Joseph, duke of Saxe-Altenburg, by whom he left a son and two daughters. His son, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland (b. 1845), continued to maintain the claim of his house to the kingdom of Hanover.

By the capitulation of 1866 the king was allowed to retain his personal property, which included money and securities equal to nearly L1,500,000, which had been sent to England before the Prussian invasion of Hanover. The crown jewels had also been secretly conveyed to England. His valuable plate, which had been hidden at Herrenhausen, was restored to him in 1867; his palace at Herrenhausen, near Hanover, was reserved as his property; and in 1867 the Prussian government agreed to compensate him for the loss of his landed estates, but owing to his continued hostility the payment of the interest on this sum was suspended in the following year (see HANOVER).

See O. Klopp, _Konig Georg V._ (Hanover, 1878); O. Theodor,
_Erinnerungen an Georg V._ (Bremerhaven, 1878); and O. Meding,
_Memoiren zur Zeitgeschichte_ (Leipzig, 1881-1884).

GEORGE I., king of the Hellenes (1845- ), second son of King Christian IX. of Denmark, was born at Copenhagen on the 24th of December 1845. After the expulsion of King Otho in 1862, the Greek nation, by a plebiscite, elected the British prince, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh (subsequently duke of Coburg), to the vacant throne, and on his refusal the national assembly requested Great Britain to nominate a candidate. The choice of the British government fell on Prince Christian William Ferdinand Adolphus George of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, whose election as king of the Hellenes, with the title George I., was recognized by the powers (6th of June 1863). The sister of the new sovereign, Princess Alexandra, had a few months before (10th March) married the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., and his father succeeded to the crown of Denmark in the following November. Another sister, Princess Dagmar, subsequently married the grand duke Alexander Alexandrovitch, afterwards Emperor Alexander III. of Russia. On his accession, King George signed an act resigning his right of succession to the Danish throne in favour of his younger brother Prince Waldemar. He was received with much enthusiasm by the Greeks. Adopting the motto, "My strength is the love of my people," he ruled in strict accordance with constitutional principles, though not hesitating to make the fullest use of the royal prerogative when the intervention of the crown seemed to be required by circumstances. For the events of his reign see GREECE: _History_.

King George married, on the 27th of October 1867, the grand duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, who became distinguished in Greece for her activity on behalf of charitable objects. Their children were Prince Constantine, duke of Sparta (b. 1868), who married in 1889 Princess Sophia of Prussia, daughter of the emperor Frederick, and granddaughter of Queen Victoria; Prince George (b. 1869), from November 1898 to October 1906 high commissioner of the powers in Crete; Prince Nicholas (b. 1872), who married in 1902 the grand duchess Helen-Vladimirovna of Russia; Prince Andrew (b. 1882), who married in 1903 Princess Alice of Battenberg; Prince Christopher (b. 1888); and a daughter, Princess Marie (b. 1876), who married in 1900 the grand duke George Michailovich of Russia.

GEORGE, king of Saxony (1832-1904), the youngest son of King John of Saxony (d. 1873) and Queen Amelia, was born at Dresden on the 8th of August 1832. From an early age he received a careful scientific and military training, and in 1846 entered the active army as a lieutenant of artillery. In 1849-1850 he was a student at the university of Bonn, but soon returned to military life, for which he had a predilection. In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 he commanded a Saxon cavalry brigade, and in the early part of the war of 1870-71 a division, but later succeeded to the supreme command of the XII. (Saxon) army corps in the room of his brother, the crown prince Albert (afterwards king) of Saxony. His name is inseparably associated with this campaign, during which he showed undoubted military ability and an intrepidity which communicated itself to all ranks under his command, notably at the battles of St Privat and Beaumont, in which he greatly distinguished himself. On his brother succeeding to the throne he became commander-in-chief of the Saxon army, and was in 1888 made a Prussian field marshal by the emperor William I. He married in 1859 the infanta Maria, sister of King Louis of Portugal, and King Albert's marriage being childless, succeeded on his death in 1902 to the throne of Saxony. He died on the 15th of October 1904, at Pillnitz.

GEORGE OF LAODICEA in Syria, often called "the Cappadocian," from 356 to 361 Arian archbishop of Alexandria, was born about the beginning of the 4th century. According to Ammianus (xxii. 11), he was a native of Epiphania, in Cilicia. Gregory Nazianzen tells us that his father was a fuller, and that he himself soon became notorious as a parasite of so mean a type that he would "sell himself for a cake." After many wanderings, in the course of which he seems to have amassed a considerable fortune, first as an army-contractor and then as a receiver of taxes, he ultimately reached Alexandria. It is not known how or when he obtained ecclesiastical orders; but, after Athanasius had been banished in 356, George was promoted by the influence of the then prevalent Arian faction to the vacant see. His theological attitude was that known as semi-Arian or Homoiousian, and his associates were Eustathius of Sebaste and Basil of Ancyra. At George's instigation the second Sirmian formula (promulgated by the third council of Sirmium 357), which was conciliatory towards strict Arianism, was opposed at the council of Ancyra in 358 (Harnack, _Hist. of Dogma_, iv. 76). His persecutions and oppressions of the orthodox ultimately raised a rebellion which compelled him to flee for his life; but his authority was restored, although with difficulty, by a military demonstration. Untaught by experience, he resumed his course of selfish tyranny over Christians and heathen alike, and raised the irritation of the populace to such a pitch that when, on the accession of Julian, his downfall was proclaimed and he was committed to prison, they dragged him thence and killed him, finally casting his body into the sea (24th of December 361). With much that was sordid and brutal in his character George combined a highly cultivated literary taste, and in the course of his chequered career he had found the means of collecting a splendid library, which Julian ordered to be conveyed to Antioch for his own use. An anonymous work against the Manicheans discovered by Lagarde in 1859 in a MS. of Titus of Bostra has been attributed to him.

The original sources for the facts of the life of George of Laodicea
are Ammianus, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius and Athanasius. His
character has been drawn with graphic fidelity by Gibbon in the 23rd
chapter of the _Decline and Fall_; but the theory, accepted by Gibbon,
which identifies him with the patron saint of England is now rejected
(see GEORGE, SAINT). See C.S. Hulst, _St George of Cappadocia in
Legend and History_ (1910).

GEORGE OF TREBIZOND (1395-1484), Greek philosopher and scholar, one of the pioneers of the revival of letters in the Western world, was born in the island of Crete, and derived his surname Trapezuntios from the fact that his ancestors were from Trebizond. At what period he came to Italy is not certain; according to some accounts he was summoned to Venice about 1430 to act as amanuensis to Francesco Barbaro, who appears to have already made his acquaintance; according to others he did not visit Italy till the time of the council of Florence (1438-1439). He learned Latin from Vittorino da Feltre, and made such rapid progress that in three years he was able to teach Latin literature and rhetoric. His reputation as a teacher and a translator of Aristotle was very great, and he was selected as secretary by Pope Nicholas V., an ardent Aristotelian. The needless bitterness of his attacks upon Plato (in the _Comparatio Aristotelis et Platonis_), which drew forth a powerful response from Bessarion (q.v.), and the manifestly hurried and inaccurate character of his translations of Plato, Aristotle and other classical authors, combined to ruin his fame as a scholar, and to endanger his position as a teacher of philosophy. The indignation against him on account of his first-named work was so great that he would probably have been compelled to leave Italy had not Alphonso V. given him protection at the court of Naples. He subsequently returned to Rome, where he died in great poverty on the 12th of August 1484. He had long outlived his reputation, and towards the end of his life his intellect failed him. From all accounts he was a man of very disagreeable character, conceited and quarrelsome.

See G. Voigt, _Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums_ (1893),
and article by C.F. Bahr in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine
Encyklopadie_. For a complete list of his numerous works, consisting
of translations from Greek into Latin (Plato, Aristotle and the
Fathers) and original essays in Greek (chiefly theological) and Latin
(grammatical and rhetorical), see Fabricius, _Bibliotheca Graeca_ (ed.
Harles), xii.

GEORGE THE MONK [GEORGIOS MONACHOS], called Hamartolos (Greek for "sinner"), Byzantine chronicler, lived during the reign of Michael III. (842-867). He wrote a _Chronicle_ of events, in four books, from the creation of the world to the death of the emperor Theophilus (842), whose widow Theodora restored the worship of images in the same year. It is the only original contemporary authority for the years 813-842, and therefore so far indispensable; the early parts of the work are merely a compilation. In the introduction the author disclaims all pretensions to literary style, and declares that his only object was to relate such things as were "useful and necessary" with a strict adherence to truth. Far too much attention, however, is devoted to religious matters; the iconoclasts are fiercely attacked, and the whole is interlarded with theological discussions and quotations from the fathers. The work was very popular, and translations of it served as models for Slavonic writers. The MSS. give a continuation down to 948, the author of which is indicated simply as "the logothete," by whom probably Symeon Metaphrastes (second half of the 10th century) is meant. In this religious questions are relegated to the background, more attention is devoted to political history, and the language is more popular. Still further continuations of little value go down to 1143. The large circulation of the work and its subsequent reissues, with alterations and interpolations, make it very difficult to arrive at the original text.

EDITIONS: E. de Muralt (St Petersburg, 1859); J.P. Migne, _Patrologia
Graeca_, cx.; C. de Boor (in Teubner series, 1904- ). See F. Hirsch,
_Byzantinische Studien_ (1876); C. de Boor in _Historische
Untersuchungen_ (in honour of Arnold Schafer, Bonn, 1882); C.
Krumbacher, _Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur_ (1897).