George IV., the eldest son of George III., was born in St James's Palace on 12th August 1762. He became Prince Regent in December 1810, after both houses of parliament had passed resolutions to the effect that the king was mentally incapacitated for discharging the duties of his office. He ascended the throne of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland after his father's death on 29th January 1820. Till the age of nineteen the prince was kept under strict discipline, against which he sometimes rebelled. When he was fourteen one of his tutors resigned on the ground of 'the ungovernable temper of his charge.' The Bishop of Lichfield, who then became his preceptor, gave the following forecast of the Prince of Wales: 'He will be either the most polished gentleman or the most accomplished blackguard in Europe; possibly an admixture of both.' At the age of eighteen the prince had an intrigue with Mrs Robinson, an actress, who obtained from him a bond for £20,000, and letters which she threatened to make public; she surrendered the letters for £5000, and the bond in return for an annuity of £400. When twenty he went through the ceremony of marriage with Mrs Fitzherbert (q.v.), a Roman Catholic, and by so doing forfeited his title to the crown. When the matter was mooted in the House of Commons, he desired Fox to deny there had been a marriage, and then he found fault with Fox for making the statement. Late in life he said to Lady Spencer, when consulting her about a governess for his daughter, 'Above all, I must teach her to tell the truth. You know that I don't speak the truth, and my brothers don't, and I find it a great defect from which I would have my daughter free. We have been brought up badly, the queen having taught us to equivocate.' The prince led a wild life. Out of antagonism to his father he affected to be a Whig, and associated with the leading members of the Opposition. When a lad he annoyed his father by shouting in his presence, 'Wilkes and Number 45 for ever!' When writing about his eldest son to Lord North, the king styled him an 'ill-advised young man,' and much of the king's aversion to Fox, Burke, and Sheridan was due to their associating with and advising the Prince of Wales. In 1795 he married Princess Caroline (q.v.) of Brunswick, being induced to do so by parliament agreeing to pay his debts, which amounted to £650,000. The prince had shown himself an undutiful son; he now showed himself to be a bad husband; and his conduct to his daughter and only child, the Princess Charlotte (q.v.), was that of a callous father. After becoming king he endeavoured to get a divorce from his wife, who was not more guilty than himself of conjugal crimes; but her death on 7th August 1821 terminated a struggle which had become a public scandal, and in which the people sympathised with the queen. Nothing in the reign of George IV. was more remarkable than his coronation, which was celebrated with as great pomp as that of any previous monarch, and with far greater splendour than that of William IV. or Queen Victoria. It took place on 19th July 1821, and it was described in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal by one who signed himself 'An Eyewitness,' and who was Sir Walter Scott. Eleven days after his coronation the king left London for Ireland, while his queen lay on her deathbed. In the Irish Avater, Byron writes of 'George the triumphant' speeding 'to the long-cherished isle which he loved like his—bride.' In October of the same year he went to Hanover, and was crowned king. He stopped at Brussels on the way and visited Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington acting as his guide. In August 1822 he went to Edinburgh by water, where he had a magnificent reception, of which Sir Walter Scott was the organiser. The last king who had visited Scotland before him was Charles II. Though a professed Whig when Prince of Wales, George IV. governed as his father had done by the aid of the Tories. Spencer Perceval, Lord Liverpool, Canning, Viscount Goderich, and the Duke of Wellington successively held office as premiers while he was regent and king. The movement for reform which began in the reign of George III. was opposed, with the king's concurrence, by the advisers of George IV., the massacre at Peterloo, where the inhabitants of Manchester held a reform meeting on 20th August 1820, being the most regrettable of many sad incidents. On this occasion the open-air meeting was charged by cavalry and yeomanry, with the result that eleven persons were killed and about six hundred wounded. On the ground of his religious convictions, George IV. followed his father in opposing the emancipation of the Roman Catholics; but in 1829, when the Duke of Wellington declared that the measure was imperative, the king withdrew his opposition and the measure became law. His failings and vices were conspicuous; it cannot be said that they were wholly redeemed by his taste for music, by having a good voice for singing, and by playing fairly on the flute. It was creditable to him that he read and admired the inimitable romances of Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott. Yet he did not adorn the throne, and when he died on 26th January 1830, he was least regretted by those who knew him best. See Justin McCarthy, A History of the Four Georges (4 vols. 1889 et seqq.).