The Impeachment of the House of BrunswickBradlaugh, Charles
History
The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick
Bradlaugh, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- 1714-1837; Hanover, House of
In 1784, George, Prince of Wales, was over head and ears in debt, and
the King, who appears to have hated him, refusing any aid, he resorted
to threats. Dr. Doran says: "A conversation is spoken of as having
passed between the Queen and the Minister, in which he is reported as
having said, 'I much fear, your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild
moments, may allow expressions to escape him that may be injurious to
the Crown.'--'There is little fear of that,' was the alleged reply of
the Queen; 'he is too well aware of the consequences of such a course
of conduct to himself. As regards that point, therefore, I can rely
upon him.'" Jesse says of the Prince of Wales, that between eighteen and
twenty, "to be carried home drunk, or to be taken into custody by the
watch, were apparently no unfrequent episodes in the career of the
Heir to the Throne. Under the auspices of his weak and frivolous uncle,
the Duke of Cumberland, the Prince's conversation is said to have been a
compound of the slang of grooms and the wanton vocabulary of a brothel."
"When we hunt together," said the King to the Duke of Gloucester,
"neither my son nor my brother speak to me; and lately, when the chase
ended at a little village where there was but a single post-chaise to be
hired, my son and brother got into it, and drove off, leaving me to
go home in a cart, if I could find one." And this is the family Mr.
Disraeli holds up for Englishmen to worship!
In July, 1782, Lord Shelburne came into office; but he "always
complained that the King had tricked and deserted him," and had
"secretly connived at his downfall." He resigned office on the 24th
February, 1783. An attempt was made to form a Coalition Ministry, under
the Duke of Portland. The King complained of being treated with personal
incivility, and the attempt failed. On the 23d March, the Prince of
Wales, at the Queen's Drawing-room, said: "The King had refused to
accept the coalition, but by God he should be made to agree to it."
Under the great excitement the King's health gave way. The Prince, says
Jesse, was a member of Brooks's Club, where, as Walpole tells us, the
members were not only "strangely licentious" in their talk about their
sovereign, but in their zeal for the interests of the heartless young
Prince "even wagered on the duration of the King's reign." The King
repeated his threat of abandoning the Throne, and retiring to his
Hanoverian dominions; and told the Lord-Advocate, Dundas, that he had
obtained the consent of the Queen to his taking this extraordinary step.
Young William Pitt refusing twice to accept the Premiership, Fox and
Lord North came again into power. £30,000 was voted for the Prince of
Wales's debts, and a similar sum to enable him to furnish his house.
The "unnatural" Coalition Ministry did not last long. Fox introduced his
famous India Bill. The King, regarding it as a blow at the power of
the Crown, caballed and canvassed the Peers against it. "The welfare of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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