riot
drawn by cart-horses, with a retinue that included an alderman, a
reclaimed lady-in-waiting, an Italian count, the eldest son of the
alderman, and 'a fine little female child, about three years old, whom
Her Majesty, in conformity with her benevolent practices on former
occasions, had adopted.' The breakdown of her impeachment, and her
acceptance of an income formed a fitting anti-climax to the terrible
absurdities of her position. She died from the effects of a chill caught
when she was trying vainly to force a way to her husband's coronation.
Unhappy woman! Our sympathy for her is not misgiven. Fate wrote her a
most tremendous tragedy, and she played it in tights. Let us pity her,
but not forget to pity her husband, the King, also.

It is another common accusation against George that he was an undutiful
and unfeeling son. If this was so, it is certain that not all the blame
is to be laid upon him alone. There is more than one anecdote which
shows that King George disliked his eldest son, and took no trouble to
conceal his dislike, long before the boy had been freed from his tutors.
It was the coldness of his father and the petty restrictions he loved to
enforce that first drove George to seek the companionship of such men as
Egalite and the Duke of Cumberland, both of whom were quick to inflame
his impressionable mind to angry resentment. Yet, when Margaret
Nicholson attempted the life of the King, the Prince immediately posted
off from Brighton that he might wait upon his father at Windsor--a
graceful act of piety that was rewarded by his father's refusal to see
him. Hated by the Queen, who at this time did all she could to keep her
husband and his son apart, surrounded by intriguers, who did all they
could to set him against his father, George seems to have behaved with
great discretion. In the years that follow, I can conceive no position
more difficult than that in which he found himself every time his father
relapsed into lunacy. That he should have by every means opposed those
who through jealousy stood between him and the regency was only natural.
It cannot be said that at any time did he show anxiety to rule, so
long as there was any immediate chance of the King's recovery. On the
contrary, all impartial seers of that chaotic Court agreed that the
Prince bore himself throughout the intrigues, wherein he himself was
bound to be, in a notably filial way.

There are many things that I regret in the career o