Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

George the Fourth had no sooner begun his reign than a dreadful plot was formed to kill all the cabinet ministers. The wicked men—about thirty, I believe—who contrived this plot, used to meet at a house in an out-of-the-way place called Cato Street, in the Edgware Road; and there they agreed to carry out their plan on a certain day, when the ministers were all expected to meet together and dine at Lord Harrowby’s house. Fortunately the plot was betrayed by one of the men, in time to prevent the murder: most of the conspirators were seized, and Thistlewood and four other ringleaders were hanged. This plot afterwards went by the name of the “Cato Street Conspiracy.”

About twenty-five years before George the Fourth came to the throne, he had married his cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The marriage was not a happy one, and the Prince and Princess of Wales separated soon after the birth of their first and only child, the Princess Charlotte. This led to a sad quarrel, which I think it is no use for us to remember.

The Princess Charlotte, who would have succeeded her father on the throne if she had survived him, had married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, but died the year after her marriage, to the great grief of the people. This happened before her father became king.

It was towards the middle of King George’s reign that a war broke out between the Greeks and Turks. A great many English gentlemen, amongst whom was the poet, Lord Byron, went to Greece to take the part of the Greeks. The struggle lasted several years, and was ended at length by a battle fought in the harbour of Navarino, where all the Turkish ships were sunk by the British fleet.—Navarino is at the south-west corner of the Morea in Greece.—The commander of the Turkish fleet was named Ibrahim Pacha, and the commander of the English fleet was Sir Edward Codrington. After this battle, Greece, which had been subject to Turkey, was made into an independent kingdom, and three German princes were invited in turn to be king; Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (the same who had married our Princess Charlotte) declined the honour, but Prince Otho of Bavaria accepted the invitation, and became Otho the First, King of Greece. Lord Byron died in Greece three years before the war ended. Otho was afterwards sent away because he governed badly, and the crown was given to Prince George of Denmark, brother to our Princess of Wales.

A law was passed in this reign to allow Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament and help to make laws for the country. There was much talking and considering before this was done, for many people thought that if the Roman Catholics helped to make laws, they would try to change the religion of the country, and to bring back popery, which had in former times kept the people in darkness, and caused a great deal of misery and cruel persecution, as you have read in the former part of this History. Others, believing that the Roman Catholics of the present day were wiser, and that they would continue loyal to the Sovereigns and faithful to the laws of the land, consented to admit them to equal privileges with their Protestant fellow-countrymen. So at last this law was passed; and now Roman Catholics sit in Parliament, and are made Judges in courts of law.

About the same time the severe laws against Protestant Dissenters, which were made under Charles the Second, were done away with.

The king died at Windsor at the age of sixty-eight, after a reign of ten years.

George the Fourth was a very accomplished man, but he cared so much more for pleasing himself than for doing his duty and thinking of others, that he was not a favourite with his people.

Many new buildings were erected, and various improvements made in this reign. The New London Bridge and the Thames Tunnel were begun; the Menai Suspension Bridge, joining the Isle of Anglesey to North Wales, was completed; the Regent’s Park was laid out; the Zoological Gardens were opened; and Regent Street and other handsome streets were built.

One very great improvement was made by Sir Robert Peel in causing the streets and roads to be guarded night and day by active, well-drilled policemen, instead of by watchmen, who used to be on duty only at night, and who were very frequently feeble old men scarcely able to take care of themselves.