48 Daughter.
10. Princess Elizabeth 47 Daughter.
11. Mary, Duchess of Gloucester 41 Daughter,
12. Princess Sophia 40 Daughter.
13. William, Duke of Gloucester 41 Nephew.
14. Princess Sophia of Gloucester 44 Niece.
15. Charles, Duke of Brunswick 13 Great nephew.

[67] See, however, the _Creevey Papers_, i., 268-71, 284.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAST YEARS OF LORD LIVERPOOL.

The only important events of domestic interest in the year 1820, after
the death of George III., were the Cato Street conspiracy, and the
so-called trial of Queen Caroline. For the accession of the king, who
had so long exercised royal functions as regent, produced no visible
effect either on the personal composition or on the general policy of
the government. Immediately after his proclamation he was attacked by a
dangerous illness, but on his recovery he promptly raised two questions
which nearly involved a change of ministry. One of these was a proposal
to increase his private revenue, which he was induced to abandon for the
present. The other was a demand for a divorce, which the ministers
firmly resisted, though they ultimately agreed to a compromise, under
which the divorce question was to be deferred, so long as the queen
remained quietly abroad, but action was to be taken in case she returned
to assert her rights.

[Pageheading: _THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY._]

In the midst of these difficulties the lives of the ministers were
threatened by a plot somewhat like those of the seventeenth century.
Later writers have represented it as contemptible in its conception, and
as directly provoked by the "Manchester massacre". So it may be said
that Guy Fawkes was an insignificant person, and that his employers were
exasperated by the severe treatment of popish recusants. The facts are
that Arthur Thistlewood, the author of the Cato Street conspiracy, was a
well-known confederate of the Watsons and other members of the extreme
reform party, and that his plan for murdering the assembled cabinet in a
private house would probably have been effectual, had it not been
detected by the aid of an informer. This informer, Edwards, had warned
the authorities in November, 1819, of the impending stroke, and may or
may not have instigated Thistlewood's gang to execute it at