eat distress all over the {101}
country. The enormous expense of the long wars was still making itself
felt in huge taxation. The condition of agriculture was low, and many
districts were threatened with something like famine. Trade was
suffering from the reaction which always follows a long and exhausting
war. It was confidently expected that the royal speech would take some
account of the widespread national distress and would foreshadow some
measures to deal with it. The speech, however, said nothing on the
subject. Then there was another omission which created much
dissatisfaction and even some alarm. The speech made no mention of any
measures to be taken for the establishment of a regency in the event of
the King's death. The King was sixty-five years old, and had led a
life which even the most loyal and hopeful of his subjects could not
regard with confidence as likely to give promise of a long reign. Now
the heir-presumptive to the throne was the Princess Alexandrina
Victoria, a child then only eleven years old. The Princess Victoria,
as she was commonly called, was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, the
fourth son of George the Third. Any attack of illness, any serious
accident, might bring the life of King William to a sudden close, and
then if no previous arrangement had been made for a regency Parliament
and the country might be involved in some confusion.

There was one very grave and even ominous condition which had to be
taken into account. If the King were to die suddenly, and with no
provision made for a regency, the girl, perhaps the child, who
succeeded him would in the ordinary course of things be left under the
guardianship of her eldest uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. Now it is
only stating a simple fact to say that the Duke of Cumberland was then
the most unpopular man in England. He was not merely unpopular, he was
an object of common dread and detestation. He was regarded as a
reckless profligate and an unprincipled schemer. There must have been
much exaggeration about some of the tales that were told and accepted
concerning him, for it is hard to believe that at a time so near to our
own a prince of {102} the Royal House of England could have lived a
life the story of which might seem to have belonged to the worst days
of the Lower Empire. But, whatever allowance be made for exaggeration,
it is certain that the Duke of Cumberland was almost universally hated,
and that many people