. . . . . . 15
LXV. GEORGE CANNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
LXVI. THE CLOSE OF CANNING'S CAREER . . . . . . . . . 46
LXVII. "THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC" . . . . . . . . . . 65
LXVIII. THE LAST OF THE GEORGES . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
LXIX. KING WILLIAM THE FOURTH . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
LXX. LE ROI D'YVETOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
LXXI. REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
LXXII. THE GREAT DEBATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
LXXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
LXXIV. THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOUR . . . . . . . . . . . 188
LXXV. THE STATE CHURCH IN IRELAND . . . . . . . . . . 205
LXXVI. "ONLY A PAUPER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
LXXVII. PEEL'S FORLORN HOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
LXXVIII. STILL THE REIGN OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . 261
LXXIX. THE CLOSE OF A REIGN AND THE OPENING OF AN ERA 280
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

{1}

A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES.

CHAPTER LXIII.

"OPENS AMID ILL OMENS."

The closest student of history would find it hard indeed to turn to the
account of any other royal reign which opened under conditions so
peculiar and so unpropitious as those which accompanied the succession
of George the Fourth to the English throne. Even in the pages of
Gibbon one might look in vain for the story of a reign thus singularly
darkened in its earliest chapters. George the Fourth had hardly gone
through the State ceremonials which asserted his royal position when he
was seized by a sudden illness so severe that, for a while, the nerves
of the country were strained by the alarm which seemed to tell that a
grave would have to be dug for the new King before the body of the late
sovereign had grown quite cold in the royal vault. It would be idle,
at this time of day, to affect any serious belief that the grief of the
British people at this sudden taking off, had it come to pass, would
have exceeded any possibility of consolation. George the Fourth was an
elderly personage when he came to the throne, he had been known to his
subjects as a deputy King for many years, his mode of living had long
been a familiar subject of scandal among all classes of his people, and
no one could have supposed that the prosperity of the country {2}
depended to any measurable extent on the continuance of his life