Thackeray says of him that he "never resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled it and pampered it; if he ever had any nerve, he frittered it away among cooks, and tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera-dancers.... all fiddling, and flowers, and feasting, and flattery, and folly.... a monstrous image of pride, vanity, and weakness."
Wallace says: "Monarchy, doubtless, has its advantages; but it is a matter of serious reflection that under a government called free, among a people called civilized, the claims of millions, and the contingent horrors of a civil war, should be thus dependent upon the distempered humors and paramount will of a single unit of the species."
CHAPTER VI. THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IV
William Henry, Duke of Clarence, Admiral of the Fleet, and third son of George III, born August 21st, 1765, succeeded his brother George IV. as King of England, on the 26th of June, 1830. The new King was then 65 years of age, and had been married, July 11th, 1818, to Adelaide Amelia Louisa Teresa Caroline, Princess of Saxe-Meiningen. Mrs. Dorothy Jordan, with whom William had lived, and who had borne him ten children, had fled to France to avoid her creditors, and had there died, neglected by the world, deserted by William, and in the greatest poverty. This Mrs. Jordan was sold to William by one Richard Ford, her former lover, who, amongst other rewards of virtue, was created a Knight, and made Police Magistrate at Bow Street. Mrs. Jordan's children bore the name of "Fitzclarence," and great dissatisfaction was expressed against the King, who, too mean to maintain them out of his large income, contrived to find them all posts at the public cost. At the date of William IV.'s accession, the imperial taxation was about £47,000,000; to-day it has increased at least £25,000,000.
The annual allowances to the junior branches of the Royal Family in 1830, formerly included in the Civil List, and now paid separately, were as follows:—
The Duke of Cumberland £21,000. He had no increase on his marriage; the House of Commons rejected a motion to that effect; but an allowance of £6,000 a year for his son, Prince George, had been issued to him since he became a resident in this country. This is the Duke of Cumberland, who so loved his brother, William IV., that he intrigued with the Orangemen to force William's abdication, and to get made King in his stead.
The Duke of Sussex received £21,000.
The Duke of Cambridge, father of the present Duke, had £27,000. He obtained an increase on his marriage of £6,000 a year. This Prince was charged with the government of the family territory, the kingdom of Hanover, and consequently resided but little in England.
Princess Augusta, £13,000.