In and About Drury Lane, and Other Papers Vol. 1 (of 2): Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' MagazineDoran, Dr. (John)
General
In and About Drury Lane, and Other Papers Vol. 1 (of 2): Reprinted from the pages of the 'Temple Bar' Magazine
Doran, Dr. (John)
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Theater -- England -- London -- Anecdotes
Let us now look at some of the other personages who figured in the
bygone period; and first, of kings. Poor old George III. cannot be said
at any time to have been ‘every inch a king.’ He was certainly not, by
nature, a cruel man. Yet he betrayed something akin to cruelty when,
on the night of the Lord George Gordon riots, an officer who had been
actively employed in suppressing the rioters waited on the king to
make his report. George III. hurried forward to meet him, crying out
with screaming iteration, ‘Well! well! well! I hope you peppered them
well! peppered them well! peppered them well!’ There may, however, have
been nothing more in this than there was in Wellington’s injunction
to his officers on the day that London was threatened with a Chartist
revolution, ‘Remember, gentlemen, there must be no little war.’ In such
cases humanity to revolutionists is lack of mercy to the friends of
order.
It is well known that George III. had an insuperable aversion to Dr.
John Willis, who had attended him when the King was labouring under
his early intermitting attacks of insanity. Willis was induced to take
temporary charge of the King, on Pitt’s promise to make him a baronet
and give him a pension of 1,500_l._ a year--pleasant things which
never came to pass. Queen Charlotte hated Willis even more than the
King did. The physician earned that guerdon by putting George III. in
a strait waistcoat whenever he thought the royal violence required it.
The doctor took this step on his own responsibility. The Queen never
forgave him, and the King, as long as he had memory, never forgot it.
In 1811, when the fatal relapse occurred, brought on, Willis thought,
by Pitt’s persistent pressure of the Roman Catholic claims on the
King’s mind, the Chancellor and the Prince of Wales had some difficulty
in inducing the doctor to take charge of the sovereign. When Willis
entered that part of Windsor Castle which was inhabited by the King
he heard the monarch humming a favourite song in his room. A moment
after George III. crossed the threshold on to the landing-place. He
was in Windsor uniform as to his coat, blue, with scarlet cuffs and
collar, a star on the breast. A waistcoat of buff chamois leather,
buskin breeches and top-boots, with the familiar three-cornered hat,
completed the costume. He came forth as a bridegroom from his chamber,
full of hope and joy, like Cymon, ‘whistling as he went for want of
thought,’ and switching his boot with his whip as he went. Suddenly,
as his eye fell on Willis, he reeled back as if he had been shot. He
shrieked out the hated name, called on God, and fell to the ground.
It was long before the unhappy sovereign could be calmed. In his own
room the King wept like a child. Every now and then he broke into
heartrending exclamations of ‘What can I do without doing wrong? They
forget my coronation oath; but I don’t! Oh, my oath! my oath! my
oath!’ The King’s excitement on seeing Willis was partly caused by his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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