A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV | Page 3

and then indulge in a secret chuckle at the expense of those among
his colleagues who really believed that the principles of old-fashioned
Toryism were the only sound principles of government.
The first business of State into which the new sovereign threw his
whole heart and soul was the endeavor to solemnize the opening of his
reign by obtaining a divorce from his wife. He went to work at once
with the set purpose of inducing his ministers to lend him their aid in
the {4} attainment of this great object. Lord Eldon was more especially
in his confidence, and with him George had many private interviews
and much exchange of letters on the subject which then engrossed his

attention. He accomplished his object so far that it was arranged to
leave the name of his wife out of the Royal Liturgy. But even to set on
foot the formal proceedings for a divorce proved a much more difficult
piece of business. Pliant as the ministers were, inclined to be abject as
some of them were in their anxiety to please their royal master, yet the
men with whom George especially consulted could not shrink from
impressing on his notice some of the obstacles which stood in the way
of his obtaining his heart's desire. One of the main difficulties consisted
in the fact that a great part of the evidence given against George's
unhappy consort during the former investigations had been given by a
class of witnesses upon whose statement it would be impossible for any
regularly constituted court of law to place much reliance. Again and
again in the correspondence which passed between the King and some
of his ministers this weakness of his case is pointed out, and it is
somewhat curious to find so complete a recognition of it by his advisers
when we bear in mind what they had sanctioned before and were to
sanction later on.
[Sidenote: 1820--Queen Caroline]
The Queen herself was on the Continent, and was threatening her
immediate return to her husband's country unless some settlement was
made with her which should secure her ample means of living and
allow her to be formally recognized abroad as the wife of King George.
Henry Brougham was acting as the Queen's principal adviser at home,
and was doing his best to bring about some sort of compromise which
might result in the Queen's accepting a quiet and informal separation on
fair and reasonable terms. George, however, was not inclined to listen
to conditions of compromise. He wanted to get rid of his Queen once
for all, to be publicly and completely divorced from her, to be free from
even a nominal association with her; and he was not inclined to accept
any terms which merely secured him against the chance of her {5} ever
again appearing within his sight. Brougham was disposed, and even
determined, to do all he could for the unhappy Caroline, although now
and then in one of his characteristic bursts of ill-temper he used to rail
against the trouble she gave him by her impatient desire to rush back to
England and make her appeal to public opinion there. There was a great

deal of negotiation between the advisers on both sides, and the final
offer made on the part of the King was that the Queen should have an
allowance of 52,000 pounds a year--not, one would have thought, a
very illiberal allowance for the daughter of a small German prince--and
that she should be allowed to retain her titles, and should be authorized
to use them at foreign courts, but that her name was not to appear in the
Liturgy, and that she was not to appear officially in England as the wife
of the sovereign. These terms were offered much against the will of the
King himself, who still yearned for the divorce, the whole divorce, and
nothing but the divorce. George yielded, however, to the urgent advice
of his ministers, with the strong hope and belief still in his own heart
that Caroline would not accept the conditions, and would insist upon
presenting herself in England and asserting her position as Queen.
The Queen, meanwhile, had left Rome, where she had been staying for
some time and where she complained of the want of deference shown
to her by the Papal authorities. She was hurrying back to England, and
had written to Brougham requesting him to meet her at Saint Omer, and
there accordingly Brougham met her. Whether he was very urgent in
his advice to her to accept the terms it is not easy to know; but, at all
events, it is quite certain that she refused point-blank to make any
concessions, that she left Brougham with positive abruptness, and
hastened on her way to England.