George IV (Born on August 12, 1762, in London – Died on June 26, 1830, in Windsor) was the King of the United Kingdom and Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death. From 1811 until his accession he was Prince Regent during the mental illness of his father George III.
George had an extravagant life that contributed to fashion during the Regency Period, being the patron of many forms of pleasure, style, and taste. He had a bad relationship with his father, accumulated large debts, and had several lovers, with the main and most enduring being Maria Fitzherbert.
He was forced to marry in 1795 with his cousin Carolina of Brunswick; the two disliked each other and separated shortly after the birth of their daughter Carlota of Wales the following year. Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, controlled the government as prime minister for most of his regency and reign.
George’s governments, while receiving little support from the king, presided over victory in the Napoleonic Wars, negotiated a peace agreement, and tried to deal with the ensuing economic and social malaise. He had to accept George Canning as prime minister, in addition to giving up his opposition to Catholic emancipation.
His charm and culture earned him the title of “England’s first gentleman”, but his relations with George III and Carolina, and his wanton way, earned him the people’s contempt and diminished the monarchy’s prestige. Taxpayers were furious at their unnecessary wartime spending.
George did not provide national leadership in a time of crisis, nor did he act as a model for his people. Ministers rated his behavior as selfish, unreliable, and irresponsible.
Quick Facts: George IV
- Born: 12 August 1762, St James’s Palace, London, United Kingdom
- Also Known As: George Augustus Frederick
- Known For: The King of the United Kingdom and Hanover
- Reign: 29 January 1820 – 26 June 1830
- Coronation: 19 July 1821
- Predecessor: George III
- Successor: William IV
- Parents: Father George III of the United Kingdom, Mother Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
- Religion: Protestant
- Spouse: Caroline of Brunswick (m. 1795; separated 1796)
- House: Hanover
- Died: 26 June 1830 (aged 67), Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England
- Burial: 15 July 1830, St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
The Early Life of George IV
Prince George was born at Saint James Palace in London on August 12, 1762; he was the first son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. As the eldest son of the British monarch, he automatically became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay at birth; he was made Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester a few days after.
On September 18, he was baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker. His godfathers were the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (his maternal uncle who was represented by the Duke of Devonshire, the Lord Chambellan), the Duke of Cumberland (his paternal double-great uncle) and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (his paternal grandmother).
George was a talented student who quickly learned French, German, and Italian in addition to English. At the age of 18, he received a separate residence and in contrast to his father’s prosaic and slaveless life, he enthusiastically entered a life of debauchery involving the abuse of alcohol and numerous mistresses.
Drunk and sober, he excelled in the art of conversation and he had strong, albeit expensive, tastes in the decoration of his residence. This was a particularly serious lack of judgment given the extraordinary poverty of many Londoners, adults, and children, who lived on the streets.
Prince reached the age of 21 in 1783 and obtained a grant of £60,000 (about 82 million pounds in 2011) from Parliament and an annual grant of £50,000 (about 68 million pounds 2011) from his father. However, this was far too small compared to his needs; the stables alone cost £31,000 per year (around £42 million in 2011).
He then moved to Carlton House where he lived an extravagant life. The animosity increased between the prince and his father who wanted the heir to adopt a more austere lifestyle. The king of conservative was angered by the support of Prince Charles James Fox and other political radicals.
Regency crisis of 1788
It is largely consensus today that George III. was suffering from metabolic disease porphyria. This hereditary disease is associated with various symptoms and often runs in episodes. Mental confusion is one of the possible manifestations of this disease.
Because the British government system was still tailored to the king, his first serious illness was accompanied by a serious government crisis. George III suffered from mental confusion throughout the summer of 1788 but was able to postpone the opening of the Parliament from September 25 to November 20.
During this session break, however, the king’s condition continued to deteriorate. When parliament was to meet again in November, the king was no longer able to deliver the speech to the throne, which was mandatory at the beginning of a parliamentary period.
An opening of the parliamentary period was thus practically impossible. The Parliament ultimately decided to overrule this arrangement and began to debate the establishment of a regency. The ruling party and the opposition agreed that the Prince of Wales should take over.
However, since the two parties had a different understanding of the roles of parliament and monarchy, there was no agreement on the basis on which the reign was to be initiated. For the ruling Tories party, a reign of the Prince of Wales was also at risk of losing its influence.
William Pitt proposed a legal trick: the monarch was able to transfer many of his sovereign rights to a Lord Commissioner by affixing the Great Imperial Seal on one decree. Now the Lord Chancellor, the depositary of the Great Imperial Seal, was to apply the seal himself without the consent of the monarch.
The act itself was illegal and was sharply criticized by personalities like Edmund Burke, but the decree was valid because of the seal attached.
In February 1789, the Regency Bill was adopted by the House of Commons, which authorized the Prince of Wales to rule as Prince Regent. But before the House of Lords could also pass the law, George III. recovered from his illness again. The king subsequently recognized the legality of the procedure and again took over the official business.
Marriage to Caroline of Brunswick
The debts of the Prince of Wales, meanwhile, continued to grow and his father refused to continue helping him if he did not marry his cousin, Carolina of Brunswick. In 1795, by force or for love, the Prince of Wales agreed, and the couple married on April 8, 1795 in the Royal Chapel of St James’s Palace.
The marriage, however, was disastrous, as the two spouses were not in the least in love with each other. The two formally separated after the birth of their only daughter, Carlotta Augusta, in 1796, and remained separated for the rest of their lives. The prince always remained tied to Maria Fitzherbert.
Before resuming ties to Mrs. Fitzherbert closely, however, the Prince of Wales had had several illegitimate children. Among her most famous lovers, we remember Mary Robinson, an actress who was liquidated with a generous annual pension because she did not sell to the newspapers the compromising letters that the two had written during their union;
Grace Elliott, another lover, was the divorced wife of a physicist; Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey, was the ruler of her life for several years. In the final part of her life, her lover was Isabella Seymour-Conway, Marquise of Hertford, and for the past ten years, Elizabeth Conyngham, Marquess of Conyngham.
The debt problems of the Prince of Wales, which amounted to the extraordinary figure of 630,000 pounds in 1795, were solved once again thanks to parliament, which guaranteed him an additional sum of 65,000 pounds a year to strengthen his position. financial. In 1803 another £60,000 was added and the Prince of Wales was able to pay his debts in 1806.
In 1804 there was also a dispute over the role of Princess Carlotta, who had begun to take care of King George III, sick but still living and reigning.
Reign of George IV
When George III died in 1820, the 57-year-old regent prince ascended the throne as George IV without much evolution on the powers he held during his regency. At the time of his accession to the throne, George IV was already an obese man and probably addicted to laudanum.
Relations between George IV and his wife Caroline were already difficult before he acceded to the throne. They had lived separately since 1796 and the two had extramarital affairs. In 1814, Caroline left Great Britain to go to Europe but she chose to return to attend the coronation of her husband and to publicly claim her title of queen consort.
However, George IV refused to grant her the status of the queen and asked his ambassadors to ensure that the foreign monarchs would do the same. On the orders of George IV, the name Caroline was omitted from the book of common prayer, the liturgy of the Church of England.
The king tried to divorce, but his advisers indicated to him that any step in this direction could involve the publication of details proving his adulterous relations. Consequently, he asked for the passage of the Pains and Penalties Bill of 1820 under which Parliament could have imposed legal sanctions without trial.
The law would have made it possible to cancel the marriage and to withdraw the title of the queen from Caroline. The law proved extremely unpopular with the public and was withdrawn from parliament. George IV nevertheless decided to exclude his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, from his coronation at Westminster Abbey, July 19, 1821.
Caroline of Brunswick fell ill the same day and died on August 7, 1821. At the end of her life, she often said she thought she had been poisoned. The extravagant coronation of George IV cost around £ 243,000 (about £ 183 million in 2011); by comparison, his father’s had cost only £10,000 (about £16 million in 2011).
Despite its exorbitant cost, it was a popular event. In 1821, King became the first British monarch to visit Ireland since Richard II in the 14th century. The following year he visited Edinburgh. His visit to Scotland, curated by Walter Scott, was the first of a monarch since Charles I of England in the 17th century.
Regency of George IV
At the end of 1810, George III had a relapse in his mental illness shortly after the death of his youngest and favorite daughter, Princess Amelia. Parliament agreed to proceed as in 1788. Without the king’s consent, the Lord Chancellor affixed the Great Seal of the Kingdom in patent letters to designate the lords commissioned.
These, in the name of the king, gave the royal assent to the Regency Act (1811). Parliament made several restrictions on the powers of the prince-regent (as the Prince of Wales would be known hereafter), which disappeared one year after the Act was passed.
At the beginning of the Regency, the Prince of Wales indicated that he would support the Whig leader, William Wyndham Grenville Ist Baron Grenville. He did not, however, immediately put Lord Grenville and the Whigs in political office.
George argued that a sudden and massive dismissal from the Tory government it would not be beneficial to the health of the king (a firm supporter of the Tories), eliminating any chance of recovery. In 1812, when it seemed implausible for the king to recover, the Prince of Wales refused to appoint a new administration under Whig leadership.
The Tories, on the other hand the Whigs as Charles Gray, Earl Gray II, tried to continue vigorously the war against the powerful emperor of France, Napoleon. With the help of Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and other countries, the United Kingdom defeated Napoleon in 1814.
At the subsequent Vienna Congress, it was decided that they would raise the Hanoverian electorate (a state that had shared sovereignty with Britain since 1714) to the kingdom. Napoleon attempted to return in 1815 but was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by Arthur Wellesley.
Duke of Wellington, brother of the Marquis of Wellesley. Also in 1815, the Anglo-American War (also called the War of 1812) came to an end, with no side victorious. During his tenure as regent, George took an active interest in matters of “style and good taste,” and his protégés — such as the dandy Beau Brummell and the architect John Nash — created the Regency style. In London,
Nash designed the Regency terraces at Regent’s Park and Regent Street. Jorge had the idea to create a beach resort and had the Brighton Pavilion built, creating a fantastic beach palace adapted by Nash in the style of “Gothic Indian“, which was freely inspired by the Taj Mahal, with extravagant “Indian” interiors and Chinese.
End of Reign and Death
Alcohol and George IV’s lifestyle were detrimental to his health. His taste for rich and hearty meals and alcohol caused a significant overweight. During his rare outings, he was the laughing stock of the public. In 1797, he reached 111 kg and in 1824, his sheath was manufactured for a waist circumference of 127 cm.
He had gout, arteriosclerosis, cataracts, and probably porphyria; he remained in bed for days on end, suffering from dyspnea which left him half asphyxiated. Some reports suggest that he showed signs of mental instability towards the end even if they were less severe than those of his father; for example, he declared that he had taken part in the battle of Waterloo, which would have been a sign of dementia or a simple joke to annoy the Duke of Wellington.
He died about 3 pm 30 on the morning of June 26, 1830, Windsor Castle; he would have said Good Lord, what is this? then he clasped the hand of his page and said My boy, this is death. He was buried in the Saint-Georges chapel of Windsor Castle on July 15th, alongside his father.