of the Bank of England anticipated this date, and began to exchange notes for specie on May 1, 1821. The new standard was definitely one of gold. A considerable fall of prices ensued, and it is still a disputed question whether the return to a single standard was entirely beneficial. But for what is called the public, the readers of newspapers and the frequenters of clubs or taverns, the rivalry of party leaders or the incidents of court life excite a much keener interest than painful efforts for the good of the humbler classes. During the closing years of George III.'s reign there were no party conflicts of special intensity. The whigs acquiesced in their self-imposed exclusion from office, and contented themselves with damaging criticism; the radicals had not yet acquired the confidence or respect of the electors. Liverpool remained prime minister; Castlereagh, foreign secretary; Sidmouth, home secretary; Vansittart, chancellor of the exchequer. Meanwhile there were startling vicissitudes in the fortunes of the royal family. The king, indeed, remained under the cloud of mental derangement which darkened the last ten years of his life, and the Princess of Wales, who had been the object of so much scandal, was now out of sight and residing abroad. The Princess Charlotte, however, the only daughter of the regent, had centred in herself the loyalty and hopes of the nation in a remarkable degree, and was credited, not unjustly, with private virtues and public sympathies contrasting strongly with the disposition of her father. Her marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who bore a high character, had been hailed with national enthusiasm, for it was known that, like Queen Victoria, she had been carefully trained and had disciplined herself, physically and morally, for the duties of a throne. It has been truly said that her death in childbirth, on November 6, was the great historical event of 1817. The prince regent, with his constitution weakened by dissipation, was not expected to survive her long, and so long as his wife lived there was no prospect of other legitimate issue, unless he could procure a divorce. There was no grandchild of George III. who could lawfully inherit the crown, and the apprehension of a collateral succession became more and more generally felt.[66]