In the midst of this revolution, George IV., who had for some years been seriously ill, and who since the trial of his wife had withdrawn himself much from public observation, died. His danger had been hidden from the people, probably at his own request. But on the 26th of June he died, a victim to a complication of diseases which had rendered his later years miserable.
Review of Wellington's administration.
Throughout the last session of the reign Wellington had occupied a position which could not long be maintained. There was no doubt that an earnest effort might immediately have driven his administration from office. He had broken with the old high Tories by the Catholic Emancipation and by his financial policy. He had quarrelled with the Canningites by insisting upon the resignation of Huskisson. He had indeed made His isolated position. some approaches towards the Whigs, and admitted both Scarlet and Lord Roslin to office, but his views rendered it impossible that any real union with them should be thought of. He thus stood absolutely alone, allowed to remain in office chiefly because men thought him the only minister fit to deal with the vacillating and unprincipled King, and because a speedy change on George's death was expected. Consequently the session was passed in somewhat meaningless discussions, and in attacks to which the arbitrary and self-confident character of Wellington laid him open. Though the settlement of Greece was finally completed, his foreign policy, as we have seen, which seemed to aim at little else than at keeping things exactly as they were, met with little approbation. Attacks against the press in which he engaged seemed at once somewhat to lower his dignity, and to give openings for the assaults of the Liberals. His financial measures, although he effected a saving of upwards of a million in the payment of the Civil Service, diminished but little the weight of taxation, while continued disturbances in Ireland, and widespread discontent and misery among the working-classes, especially in the silk trade, threw gloom over all the country.
WILLIAM IV.
1830-1837.
Born 1765 = Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, 1818.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.