The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick

In the Rev. Erskine Neale's Life of the Duke of Kent it is stated that a surgeon of note, who saw Sellis after his death, declared that there were several wounds on the back of the neck which it was physically impossible Sellis could have self-inflicted. In a lecture to his pupils the surgeon repeated this in strong language, declaring that "no man can behead himself."

The madness of George III. having become too violent and too continual to permit it to be any longer hidden from the people, the Prince of Wales was, in 1811, declared Regent, with limited powers, and £70,000 a year additional was voted for the Regent's expenses, and a further £10,000 a year also granted to the Queen as custodian of her husband. The grant to the Queen was the more outrageous, as her great wealth and miserly conduct were well known. When the Regent was first appointed, he authorized the Chancellor of the Exchequer to declare officially to the House of Commons, that he would not add to the burdens of the nation; and yet, in 1812, the allowance voted was made retrospective, so as to include every hour of his office.

In the discussion in Parliament on the proposed Regency, it appeared that the people had been for a considerable period utterly deceived on the subject of the King's illness; and that, although his Majesty had been for some time blind, deaf, and delirious, the Ministry, representing the King to be competent, had dared to carry on the Government whilst Greorge III. was in every sense incapacitated. It is worthy of notice that the Right Honorable Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the great Conservative party in this country, publicly declared on September 26th, 1871, that her present Majesty, Queen Victoria, was both "physically and morally" incapable of performing her regal functions. One advantage of having the telegraph wires in the hands of Government is shown by the fact that all the telegraphic summaries omitted the most momentous words of Mr. Disraeli's speech. During the debate in the session of 1811, it was shown that when the King was mad in the month of March, 1804, he had on the 4th been represented by Lord Eldon as if he had given his assent to a bill granting certain lands to the Duke of York, and on the 9th as if he had signed a commission.

Earl Grey stated that it was notorious that on two occasions the Great Seal had been employed as if by his Majesty's command, while he was insane. The noble earl also declared that, in 1801, the King was mad for some weeks, and yet during that time councils were held, members sworn to it, and acts done requiring the King's sanction. Sir Francis Burdett said, "that to have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable of signing his name to a document without some one to guide his hand; a person long incapable of receiving petitions, of even holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of his office, and now afflicted with this mental malady, was a most mischievous example to the people of this country, while it had a tendency to expose the Government to the contempt of foreign nations."

One of the earliest acts of the Prince Regent was to reappoint his brother, the Duke of York, to the office of Commander-in-Chief. A motion was proposed by Lord Milton, in the House of Commons, declaring this appointment to be "highly improper and indecorous." The Ministry were, however, sufficiently powerful to negative this resolution by a large majority. Though His Royal Highness had resigned his high office when assailed with charges of the grossest corruption, he was permitted to resume the command of the army without even a protest, save from a minority of the House of Commons, and from a few of the unrepresented masses. The chief mistress of the Prince Regent at this time was the Marchioness of Hertford; and the Courier, then the ministerial journal, had the cool impudence to speak of her as 'Britain's guardian angel,' because her influence had been used to hinder the carrying any measure for the relief of the Irish Catholics. Amongst the early measures under the Regency, was the issue in Ireland of a circular letter addressed to the Sheriffs and Lord Lieutenants of the counties, forbidding the meetings of Catholics, and threatening all Catholic committees with arrest and imprisonment. This, however, was so grossly illegal, that it had shortly after to be abandoned, a Protestant jury having refused to convict the first prisoners brought to trial. It is curious to read the arguments against Catholic Emancipation pleaded in the Courier, one being that during the whole of his reign, George III. "is known to have felt the most conscientious and irrevocable objections" to any such measure of justice to his unfortunate Irish subjects.

In 1812 we had much poverty in England; and though this was not dealt with by Parliament, £100,000 was granted to Lord Wellington, and £200,000 voted for Russian sufferers by the French war. We had a few months previously voted £100,000 for the relief of the Portuguese against the French. On a message from the Prince Regent, annuities of £9,000 each were also granted to the four Princesses, exclusive of £4,000 from the Civil List. The message from the Prince Regent for the relief of the "Russian sufferers" was brought down on the 17th of December; and it is a curious fact that while Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool were eulogizing the Russians for their "heroic patriotism" in burning Moscow, the Russians themselves were declaring in the St. Petersburgk Gazette that the deed was actually committed by "the impious French," on whose heads the Gazette invoked the vengeance of God.

In 1812, the Prince Regent gave a sinecure office, that of Paymaster of Widows' Pensions, to his "confidential servant," Colonel Macmahon. The nature of the sort of private services which had been for some years performed by this gallant colonel for this virtuous Prince may be better guessed than described. Mr. Henry Brougham declared the appointment to be an insult to Parliament. It was vigorously attacked indoors and out of doors, and, in obedience to the voice of popular opinion, the Commons voted the immediate abolition of the office. To recompense Colonel Macmahon for the loss of his place, he was immediately appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse and Private Secretary to the Prince Regent. This appointment was also severely criticised; and although the Government were sufficiently powerful to defeat the attack in the Commons, they were yet compelled, by the strong protest made by the public against such an improper appointment, to nominally transfer the salary to the Regent's privy purse. The transfer was not real, as, the Civil List being always in debt, the nation had in fact ultimately to pay the money.

In 1813, foreign subsidies to the amount of £11,000,000, and 100,000 stand of arms, were voted by the English Parliament. Out of the above, Portugal received £2,000,000, Sicily, £400,000, Spain, £2,000,000, Sweden, £1,000,000, Russia and Prussia, £3,000,000, Austria, £1,000,000, besides stores sent to Germany to the amount of £2,000,000 more.

This year his Royal Highness the Prince Regent went to Ascot races, where he was publicly dunned by a Mr. Vaux-hall Clarke for a betting debt incurred some years before, and left unpaid.

Great excitement was created in and out of Parliament by the complaint of the Princess of Wales that she was not allowed to see her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. The Prince Regent formally declared, through the Speaker of the House of Commons, that he would not meet, on any occasion, public or private, the Princess of Wales (whom it was urged that "he had been forced to marry "); while the Princess of Wales wrote a formal letter to Parliament complaining that her character had been "traduced by suborned perjury." Princess Charlotte refused to be presented at Court except by her mother, who was not allowed to go there. In the House of Commons, Mr. Whitbread charged the Lords Commissioners with unduly straining the evidence by leading questions; and Lord Ellenborough, in his place in the House of Peers, declared that the accusation was "as false as hell." Ultimately, it was admitted that the grave charges against the Princess of Wales were groundless, and £35,000 a year was voted to her, she agreeing to travel abroad. Mr. Bathurst, a sinecurist pensioner, pleading on behalf of the Prince Regent that the House of Commons ought not to interfere, urged that it was no unusual thing to have dissensions in the Royal Family, and that they had been frequent in the reigns of George I. and George II. Mr. Stuart Wortley, in the course of a severe speech in reply to Lord Castlereagh, declared that "we had a Royal Family which took no warning from what was said or thought about them, and seemed to be the only persons in the country who were wholly regardless of their own welfare and respectability."

The Princess Charlotte of Wales was at this time residing in Warwick House, and some curiosity was aroused by the dismissal, by order of the Prince Regent, of all her servants. This was immediately followed by the flight of the Princess from the custody of her father to the residence of her mother, the Princess of Wales. Persuaded to return to the Prince Regent by her mother, Lord Eldon, and others, she appears to have been really detained as a sort of prisoner, for we find the Duke of Sussex soon after complaining in the House of Lords that he was unable to obtain access to the Princess, and asking by whose authority she was kept in durance. Happy family, these Bruns-wicks!

In 1814, £100,000 further was devoted to the Duke of Wellington, together with an annuity of £10,000 a year, to be at any time commuted for £300,000. The income of the Duke of Wellington, from places, pensions, and grants, amounted to an enormous sum. At present we pay his heir £4,000 a year for having inherited his father's riches.

During the year 1814, £118,857 was voted for payment of the Civil List debts.

The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, after the restoration of Louis XVIII., visited the Prince Regent in this country, when the following squib was published: —

     "There be princes three,     Two of them come from a far countrie,     And for valor and prudence their names shall be     Enrolled in the annals of glorie.     The third is said at a bottle to be     More than a match for his whole armie,     And fonder of fur caps and fripperie     Than any recorded in storie.     Those, from the North great warriors be,     And warriors have in their companie,     But he of the South must stare to see     Himself in such goodly companie.     For to say what his usual consorts be,     Would make but a pitiful storie."

On the 12th of August, 1814, the Princess of Wales quitted England, and it is alleged that, on the evening prior to her departure, the Prince Regent, having as usual drank much wine, proposed a toast, "To the Princess of Wales' damnation, and may she never return to England." Whether this story, which Dr. Doran repeats, be true or false, it is certain that the Prince Regent hated his wife with a thoroughly merciless hatred. When the death of Napoleon was known in England, a gentleman, thinking to gain favor with George IV. said, "Your Majesty's bitterest enemy is dead." The "first gentleman of Europe" thought only of his wife, and replied, "Is she, by God!"

The highly esteemed and virtuous Duke of Cumberland was married at Berlin to the Princess of Salms, a widow who had been twice married, once betrothed, and once divorced. The lady was niece to the Queen of England, who refused to receive her publicly or privately. On this refusal being known, a letter was published in the newspapers, written and signed by the Queen herself, to her brother the Duke of Mecklenburgh-Strelitz, the father of the bride, in which letter the Queen gave assurances of a kind reception to the bride on her arrival in England. The Queen's friends replied that the Queen's letter was only written to be shown to the German Courts on the condition that the Duchess should not come to England. Curious notions of truth and honor seem current among these Brunswicks!

On the 27th of June, the Lords, on a message from the Prince Regent, voted an additional allowance of £6,000 a year to the Duke of Cumberland in consequence of the marriage. In the House of Commons, after a series of very warm debates, in which Lord Castlereagh objected to answer "any interrogatories tending to vilify the Royal Family," the House ultimately refused to grant the allowance by 126 votes against 125.

One historian says: "The demeanor of the Duchess of Cumberland in this country has been, to say the least, unobtrusive and unimpeached; but it must be confessed that a disastrous fatality – something inauspicious and indescribable – attaches to the Prince, her husband."

This year £200,000 further was voted to the Duke of Wellington, for the purchase of an estate, although it appeared from one Member of Parliament's speech that the vote should rather have been to the Prince Regent. "Who," he asked, "had rendered the army efficient? The Prince Regent – by restoring the Duke of York to the Horse Guards. Who had gained the Battle of Waterloo? The Prince Regent – by giving the command of the army to the Duke of Wellington!!" The Prince Regent himself had even a stronger opinion on the matter. Thackeray says: "I believe it is certain about George IV. that he had heard so much of the war, knighted so many people, and worn, such a prodigious quantity of marshal's uniforms, cocked hats, cocks' feathers, scarlet and bullion in general, that he actually fancied he had been present at some campaigns, and under the name of General Brock led a tremendous charge of the German legion at Waterloo."

In 1816, Prince Leopold of Coburg Saalfeld, a very petty German Prince, without estate or position, married the Princess Charlotte of Wales, as if he were a Protestant, although he most certainly on other occasions acted as if he belonged to the Catholic Church. A grant of £60,000 a year was made to the royal couple; £60,000 was given for the wedding outfit, and £50,000 secured to Prince Leopold for life, in the event of his surviving the Princess. And although this was done, it was well known to the Prince Regent and the members of the Government, that on the 2d January of the previous year, a marriage ceremony, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, had been performed, by which the Prince Leopold was united to the Countess of Cohaky. Bigamy appears to be a fashionable vice, and one to which these Brunswicks never raise any objection.

On the 9th December, the City of London presented an address to the Prince Regent, in which they complained of "immense subsidies to foreign powers to defend their own territories, or to commit aggressions on those of their neighbors, of an unconstitutional and unprecedented military force in time of peace, of the unexampled and increasing magnitude of the Civil List, of the enormous sums paid for unmerited pensions and sinecures, and of a long course of the most lavish and improvident expenditure of the public money throughout every branch of the Government." This address appears to have deeply wounded the Regent, and the expressions of stern rebuke he used in replying, coupled with a rude sulkiness of manner, were ungracious and unwarrantable. He emphasized his answer with pauses and frowns, and turned on his heel as soon as he had delivered it. And yet at this moment hundreds of thousands in England were starving. Kind monarchs these Brunswicks!

Early in 1817, the general distress experienced in all parts of England, and which had been for some time on the increase, was of a most severe character. Meetings in London and the provinces grew frequent, and were most numerously attended, and on February 3d, in consequence of a message from the Prince Regent, Committees of Secrecy were appointed by the Lords and Commons, to inquire into the character of the various movements. The Government was weak and corrupt, but the people lacked large-minded leaders, and the wide-spread discontent of the masses of the population rendered some of their number easy victims to the police spies who manufactured political plots.

On the 6th of November, 1817, Princess Charlotte of Wales died. Complaints were raised that the Princess had not been fairly treated, and some excitement was created by the fact that Sir Richard Croft, the doctor who attended her, soon after committed suicide, and that the public and the reporters were not allowed to be present at the inquest. No notice whatever of the Princess's death was forwarded to her mother, the Princess of Wales. In a letter to the Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Wynn speaks of this as "the most brutal omission I ever remember, and one which would attach disgrace in private life." At this very time a large sum of money was being wasted in the employment of persons to watch the Princess of Wales on her foreign travels. In her correspondence we find the Princess complaining that her letters were opened and read, and that she was surrounded with spies. From the moment that George III. was declared incurable, and his death approaching, there seems little doubt that desperate means were resorted to to manufacture evidence against the Princess to warrant a divorce.

On July 13th, 1818, his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence married Adelaide, Princess of Saxe Meiningen, and his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent married her Serene Highness Victoria, Princess of Leiningen. The Duke of Clarence, of course, had voted to him an additional allowance of £6,000 a year on entering the married state, although he was already receiving from the country more than £21,000 a year in cash, and a house rent free. It is highly edifying to read that during the debates in Parliament, and when some objection was raised to the extra sums proposed to be voted to one of the Royal Dukes, Mr. Canning pleaded, as a reason for the payment, that his Royal Highness was not marrying "for his own private gratification, but because he had been advised to do so for the political purposes of providing succession to the throne." Pleasant this for the lady, and glorious for the country – Royal breeding machines! The Duke of Kent, who had the same additional vote, had about £25,000 a year, besides a grant of £20,000 towards the payment of his debts, and a loan of £6,000 advanced in 1806, of which up to the time of his marriage only £1,000 had been repaid.

Of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, father of her present Majesty, it is only necessary to say a few words. The fourth son of George III. was somewhat better than his brothers, and perhaps for this very reason he seems always to have been disliked, and kept at a distance by his father, mother, and brothers. Nor was the Duke of Kent less disliked amongst the army, which he afterwards commanded. Very few of the officers loved him, and the bulk of the privates seem to have regarded him with the most hostile feelings. Kept very short of money by his miserly father and mother, he had, even before his majority, incurred considerable debts; and coming to England in 1790, in order to try and induce the King to make him some sufficient allowance, he was ordered to quit England in ten days. While allowances were made to all the other sons of George, the Duke of Kent had no Parlimentary vote until he was thirty-three years of age. In 1802 he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, where a mutiny took place, and the Duke had a narrow escape of his life. The Duke of Kent's friends allege that this mutiny was encouraged by officers of the highest rank, secretly sustained by the Duke of York. The Duke of York's friends, on the contrary, maintain that the overbearing conduct of the Duke of Kent, his severity in details, and general harshness in command, alone produced the result. The Duke of Kent was recalled from the Government of Gibraltar, and for some months the pamphleteers were busy on behalf of the two Dukes, each seeking to prove that the royal brother of his royal client was a dishonorable man. Pleasant people, these Brunswicks! If either side wrote the truth, one of the Dukes was a rascal. If neither side wrote the truth, both were. The following extract from a pamphlet by Mary Anne Clarke, mistress of the Duke of York, will serve to show the nature of the publications I refer to: "I believe there is scarcely a military man in the kingdom who was at Gibraltar during the Duke of Kent's command of that fortress but is satisfied that the Duke of York's refusal of a court martial to his royal brother afforded an incontestible proof of his regard for the military character and honor of the Duke of Kent; for if a court martial had been granted to the Governor of Gibraltar, I always understood there was but one opinion as to what would have been the result; and then the Duke of Kent would have lost several thousands a year, and incurred such public reflections that would, most probably, have been painful to his honorable and acute feelings. It was, however, this act of affection for the Duke of Kent that laid the foundation of that hatred which has followed the Commander-in-Chief up to the present moment; and to this unnatural feeling he is solely indebted for all the misfortunes and disgrace to which he has been introduced. In one of the many conversations which I had with Majors Dodd and Glennie, upon the meditated ruin of the Duke of York, they informed me that their royal friend had made every endeavor in his power to poison the King's ear against the Commander-in-Chief, but as Colonel Taylor was so much about the person of his Majesty, all his efforts had proved ineffectual; and to have spoken his sentiments before Colonel Taylor would have been very injudicious, as he would immediately have communicated them to the Commander-in-Chief, who, though he knew this time ( said these confidential and worthy patriots) that the Duke of Kent was supporting persons to write against him, and that some parliamentary proceedings were upon the eve of bursting upon the public attention, yet deported himself towards his royal brother as if they lived but for each other's honor and happiness; and the Duke of Kent, to keep up appearances, was more particular in his attentions to the Duke of York than he had ever been before."

Despite the Duke of Kent's recall, he continued to receive salary and allowances as Governor. After the celebration of the marriage, he resided abroad, and was on such unfriendly terms with his family that when he returned from Amorbach to England, it was against the express orders of the Prince Regent, who, shortly after meeting his brother at the Spanish Ambassador's, took not the slightest notice of him.

On the 17th November, 1818, the Queen died, and the custody of the body of the mad, deaf, and blind monarch of England was nominally transferred to the Duke of York, who was voted an extra £10,000 a year for performing the duty of visiting his royal father twice a week. Objection was ineffectually raised that his Royal Highness had also his income as Commander-in-Chief and General Officer, and it might have also been added, his pensions and his income as Prince Bishop of Osnaburg. Mr. Curwen said: "Considering how complete the revenue of his Royal Highness was from public emoluments, he could not consent to grant him one shilling upon the present occasion."

In 1819, the Duke of Kent tried to get up a lottery for the sale of his Castlebar estate, in order to pay his debts, which were then about £70,000, but the project, being opposed by the Prince Regent, fell to the ground.

On the 24th of May, 1819, her present Majesty was born; and on the 23d of January, 1820, the Duke of Kent, her father, died.

On the 29th of January, 1820, after a sixty years' reign – in which debt, dishonor, and disgrace accrued to the nation he reigned over – George III. died. The National Debt at the date of his accession to the throne was about £150,000,000; at his death it was about £900,000,000.

Phillimore asks: "Had it not been for the unlimited power of borrowing, how many unjust and capricious wars would have been avoided! How different would be our condition, and the condition of our posterity! If half the sum lavished to prevent any one bearing the name of Napoleon from residing in France, for replacing the Bourbons on the thrones of France and Naples, for giving Belgium to Holland, Norway to Sweden, Finland to Russia, Venice and Lombardy to Austria, had been employed by individual enterprise, what would now be the resources of England?"