The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 785: ACCESSION OF GEORGE IV.

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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ACCESSION OF GEORGE IV.

A.D. 1820

GEORGE IV. had long governed the empire, so that the acquisition of the crown effected no other change than that of the title of regent to king. The assumption of this new dignity, however, was followed by perplexities of great magnitude. He had long repudiated his wife, now Queen Caroline, and she had been living in foreign lands as an exile. This step had alienated the affections of his people from him; and at his accession to the throne, when he was induced to extend the limits of the hostility he had displayed towards his consort, they became, out of sympathy for an injured and helpless female, still more embittered against him. His accession to the throne, however, gave Caroline an opportunity of retaliation, which, as will be seen, she was not backward in exercising.