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 th