marriage of the present sovereign to Mrs. Fitzherbert has already
been mentioned. A few years afterward, in the year 1795, regarding that
marriage as illegal, he had contracted a second with his cousin, the
Princess Caroline of Brunswick. But, even in royal families, a more
unfortunate alliance had never taken place. They had never met till she
arrived in England for the wedding; and, as he had never professed any
other motive for consenting to the match than a desire to obtain the
payment of his debts, he did not think it necessary to disguise his
feelings, or to change his habits, or even to treat her with decency for
a single day. On his very first introduction to her he behaved to her
with marked discourtesy.[183] Shortly after the marriage he formally
separated himself from her, and, both before and after the separation,
lived in undisguised licentiousness. She, on her part, indignant at his
neglect and infidelity, and exasperated at the restrictions which he
presently placed on her intercourse with their only child, made no
secret of her feelings, and on many occasions displayed such disregard
of the ordinary rules of prudence and propriety, that he had some color
for charges of infidelity to her marriage vows which, after a few years,
he brought against her. The King, her uncle, could not refuse to appoint
a commission to investigate the truth of the accusation; but the
commissioners unanimously acquitted her of any graver fault than
imprudence. She was again received at court, from which she had been
excluded while the inquiry was pending; but her husband's animosity
toward her was not appeased. As time wore on, and as the King's
derangement deprived her of her only protector, it even seemed as if he
desired to give it all the notoriety possible, till at last, wearied out
by his implacable persecution, she sought and obtained his permission to
quit the country and take up her abode abroad. It was a most unfortunate
resolution on her part. She fixed her residence in Italy, where she
gradually learned to neglect the caution which she had observed in
England, till, after a year or two, reports arose of her intimacy with a
servant whom she had raised from a menial situation to that of the chief
officer of her household, and whom she admitted to a familiarity of
intercourse which others besides her husband thought quite incompatible
with innocence. He sent agents into Italy to inquire into the truth of
those rumors; a