The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick

by Charles Bradlaugh

It appears that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York exhibited what was considered somewhat indecent eagerness to have the King declared irrecoverably insane, and on more than one occasion the Queen refused to allow either of these Royal Princes access to the King's person, on the ground that their violent conduct retarded his recovery. The Prince of Wales and Duke of York protested in writing against the Queen's hostility to them, and published the protest. Happy family, these Brunswicks! Dr. Doran declares: "There was assuredly no decency in the conduct of the Heir-apparent, or of his next brother. They were gaily flying from club to club, party to party, and did not take the trouble even to assume the sentiment which they could not feel. 'If we were together,' says Lord Granville, in a letter inserted in his Memoirs, 'I would tell you some particulars of the Prince of Wales's behavior to the King and Queen, within these few days, that would make your blood run cold.' It was said that if the King could only recover and learn what had been said and done during his illness, he would hear enough to drive him again into insanity. The conduct of his eldest sons was marked by its savage inhumanity." Jesse says: "The fact is a painful one to relate, that on the 4th December—the day on which Parliament assembled, and when the King's malady was at its worst—the graceless youth (the Duke of York) not only held a meeting of the opposition at his own house, but afterwards proceeded to the House of Lords, in order to hear the depositions of the royal physicians read, and to listen to the painful details of his father's lunacy. Moreover the same evening we track both the brothers (the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York) to Brooks's, where in a circle of boon companions, as irreverent as themselves, they are said to have been in the habit of indulging in the most shocking indecencies, of which the King's derangement was the topic. On such occasions, we are told, not only did they turn their parents into ridicule, and blab the secrets of the chamber of sickness at Windsor, but the Prince even went to such unnatural lengths as to employ his talents for mimicry, in which he was surpassed by few of his contemporaries, in imitating the ravings and gestures of his stricken father. As for the Duke of York, we are assured that 'the brutality of the stupid sot disgusted even the most profligate of his associates.'" Even after the King's return to reason had been vouched by the physicians, William Grenville, writing to Lord Buckingham, says that the two princes "amused themselves with spreading the report that the King was still out of his mind." When the great thanksgiving for the King's recovery took place at Saint Paul's, the conduct of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, in the Cathedral itself, is described "as having been in the highest degree irreverent, if not indecent." Sir William Young writes to Lord Buckingham, "The day will come when Englishmen will bring these Princes to their senses." Alas for England, the day has not yet come!

In 1789, a great outcry was raised against the Duke of York on account of his licentiousness. In 1790, the printer of the Times newspaper was fined £100 for libelling the Prince of Wales, and a second £100 for libelling the Duke of York. It was in this year that the Prince of Wales, and the Dukes of York and Clarence, issued joint and several bonds to an enormous amount—it is said, £1,000,000 sterling, and bearing 6 per cent, interest. These bonds were taken up chiefly abroad; and some Frenchmen who subscribed, being unable to obtain either principal or interest, applied to the Court of Chancery, in order to charge the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall. Others of the foreign holders of bonds had recourse to other proceedings to enforce their claims. In nearly every case the claimants were arrested by the Secretary of State's order, and sent out of England under the Alien Act, and when landed in their own country were again arrested for treasonable communication with the enemy, and perished on the scaffold. MM. De Baume, Chaudot, Mette, Aubert, Vaucher, and others, all creditors of the Prince, were thus arrested under the Duke of Portland's warrant, and on their deportation rearrested for treason, and guillotined. Thus were some of the debts of the Royal Family of Brunswick settled, if not paid. Honest family, these Brunswicks!

George, Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York were constant patrons of prize fights, races, and gambling tables, largely betting, and not always paying their wagers when they lost. In the autumn of 1791 a charge was made against the Prince of Wales that he allowed his horse Escape to run badly on the 20th of October, and when heavily betted against caused the same horse to be ridden to win. A brother of Lord Lake, who was friendly to the Prince, and who managed some of his racing affairs, evidently believed there was foul play, and so did the Jockey Club, who declared that if the Prince permitted the same jockey, Samuel Chiffney, to ride again, no gentleman would start against him. A writer employed by George, Prince of Wales, to defend his character, says: "It may be asked, why did not the Prince of Wales declare upon his honor, that no foul play had been used with respect to Escape's first race? Such a declaration would at once have solved all difficulties, and put an end to all embarrassments. But was it proper for the Prince of Wales to have condescended to such a submission? Are there not sometimes suspicions of so disgraceful a nature afloat, and at the same time so improbable withal, that if the person, who is the object of them, condescends to reply to them, he degrades himself? Was it to be expected of the Prince of Wales that he should purge himself by oath, like his domestic? Or, was it to be looked for, that the first subject in the realm, the personage whose simple word should have commanded deference, respect, and belief, was to submit himself to the examination of the Jockey Club, and answer such questions as they might have thought proper to have proposed to him?"

This, coming from a family like the Brunswicks, and from one of four brothers who, like their highnesses of Wales, York, Kent, and Cumberland, had each in turn declared himself upon honor not guilty of some misdemeanor or felony, is worthy a note of admiration. George, Prince of Wales, declared himself not guilty of bigamy; the Duke of York declared himself not guilty of selling promotion in the army. Both these Princes publicly declared themselves not guilty of the charge of trying to hinder their royal father's restoration to sanity. The Duke of Kent, the Queen's father, declared that he was no party to the subornation of witnesses against his own brother. The Duke of Cumberland pledged his oath that he had never been guilty of sodomy and murder.

In September, 1791, the Duke of York was married to the Princess Frederica, daughter of the King of Prussia, with whom he lived most unhappily for a few years. The only effect of this marriage on the nation was that £18,000 a year was voted as an extra allowance to his Royal Highness, the Duke of York. This was in addition to 100,000 crowns given out of the Civil List as a marriage portion to the Princess. Dr. Doran says of the Duchess of York: "For six years she bore with treatment from the 'Commander-in-Chief' such as no trooper under him would have inflicted on a wife equally deserving. At the end of that time the ill-matched pair separated." Kind husbands, these Brunswicks!

In a print published on the 24th May, 1792, entitled "Vices Overlooked in the New Proclamation," Avarice is represented by King George and Queen Charlotte, hugging their hoarded millions with extreme satisfaction, a book of interest tables lying at hand. This print is divided into four compartments, representing: 1. Avarice; 2. Drunkenness, exemplified in the person of the Prince of Wales; 3. Gambling, the favorite amusement of the Duke of York; and 4. Debauchery, the Duke of Clarence and Mrs. Jordan—as the four notable vices of the Royal family of Great Britain. If the print had to be re-issued to-day, it would require no very vivid imagination to provide materials from the living members of the Royal Family to refill the four compartments.

Among various other remarkable trials occurring in 1792, those of Daniel Holt and William Winterbottom are here worthy of notice, as illustrating the fashion in which the rule of the Brunswick monarchy has trenched on our political liberties. The former, a printer of Nottingham, was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment for re-publishing, verbatim, a political tract, originally circulated without prosecution by the Thatched House Tavern Association, of which Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Richmond had been members. The other, a dissenting minister at Plymouth, of virtuous and highly respectable character, was convicted of sedition, and sentenced to four years' imprisonment in the jail of Newgate, for two sermons preached in commemoration of the revolution of 1688. The indictment charged him with affirming, "That his Majesty was placed upon the throne on condition of keeping certain laws and rules, and if he does not observe them, he has no more right to the crown than the Stuarts had." All the Whigs in the kingdom might, doubtless, have been comprehended in a similar indictment. And if the doctrine affirmed by the Rev. Mr. Winterbottom be denied, the monstrous reverse of the proposition follows, that the King is bound by no conditions or laws; and that, though resistance to the tyranny of the Stuarts might be justifiable, resistance under the same circumstances to the House of Brunswick is not. This trial, for the cruelty and infamy attending it, has been justly compared to the celebrated one of Rosewell in the latter years of Charles II., to the events of which those of 1792 exhibit, in various respects, a striking and alarming parallel.

Before his election to the National Convention, Thomas Paine published the second part of his "Rights of Man," in which he boldly promulgated principles which, though fiercely condemned at the date of their issue, are now being gradually accepted by the great mass of the people. Paine's work was spread through the kingdom with extraordinary industry, and was greedily sought for by people of all classes. Despite the great risk of fine and imprisonment, some of the most effective parts were printed on pieces of paper, which were used by Republican tradesmen as wrappers for their commodities. Proceedings were immediately taken against Thomas Paine as author of the obnoxious book, which was treated as a libel against the government and constitution, and on trial Paine was found guilty. He was defended with great ability by Erskine, who, when he left the court, was cheered by a crowd of people who had collected without, some of whom took his horses from his carriage, and dragged him home to his house in Serjeant's Inn. The name and opinions of Thomas Pain were at this moment gaining influence, in spite of the exertions made to put them down. From this time for several years it is almost impossible to read a weekly journal without finding some instance of persecution for publishing Mr. Paine's political views.

The trial of Thomas Paine was the commencement of a series of State prosecutions, not for political offences, but for political designs. The name of Paine had caused much apprehension, but many even amongst the Conservatives dreaded the extension of the practice of making the publication of a man's abstract opinions criminal, when unaccompanied with any direct or open attempt to put them into effect. In the beginning of 1793 followed prosecutions in Edinburgh, where the ministerial influence was great, against men who had associated to do little more than call for reform in Parliament; and five persons, whose alleged crimes consisted chiefly in having read Paine's "Rights of Man," and in having expressed either a partial approbation of his doctrines, or a strong declaration in favor of Parliamentary reform, were transported severally: Joseph Gerrald, William Skirving, and Thomas Muir for fourteen, and Thomas Fyshe Palmer and Maurice Margarot for seven years! These men had been active in the political societies, and it was imagined that, by an exemplary injustice of this kind, these societies would be intimidated. Such, however, was not the case, for, from this moment, the clubs in Edinburgh became more active than ever, and they certainly took a more dangerous character; so that, before the end of the year, there was actually a "British Convention" sitting in the Scottish capital. This was dissolved by force at the beginning of 1794, and two of its members were added to the convicts already destined for transportation. Their severe sentences provoked warm discussions in the English Parliament, but the ministers were inexorable in their resolution to put them in execution.

The extreme severity of the sentences passed on the Scottish political martyrs, even as judged by those admitting the legality and justice of their conviction, was so shameful as to rouse general interest. Barbarous as the law of Scotland appeared to be, it became a matter of doubt whether the Court of Justiciary had not exceeded its power, in substituting the punishment of transportation for that of banishment, imposed by the Act of Queen Anne, for the offence charged on those men.