(S. R. G.; H. Ch.)
[1] For a discussion of the ecclesiastical validity of the marriage see W.H. Wilkins, Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV. (1905), chs. vi. and vii.
[2] Mrs Fitzherbert herself, after her final separation from the prince, with an annuity of £6000 a year, lived an honoured and more or less retired life mainly at Brighton, a town which owed its rapid development in fashionable popularity and material wealth to its selection by the prince and herself as a residence from the earliest years of their union; and there she died, seven years after the death of George IV., in 1837. William IV. on his accession offered to create her a duchess, but she declined; she accepted, however, his permission to put her servants in royal livery. William IV. in fact did all he could, short of a public acknowledgment (which the duke of Wellington opposed on state grounds), to recognize her position as his brother’s widow. Charles Greville, writing of her after her death, says in his Diary, “She was not a clever woman, but of a very noble spirit, disinterested, generous, honest and affectionate.” The actual existence of a marriage tie and the documentary evidence of her rights were not definitely established for many years; but in 1905 a sealed packet, deposited at Coutts’s bank in 1833, was at length opened by royal permission, and the marriage certificate and other conclusive proofs therein contained were published in Mr W.H. Wilkins’s Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV. In 1796 the prince had made a remarkable will in Mrs Fitzherbert’s favour, which he gave her in 1799, and it is included among these documents (now in the private archives at Windsor). In this he speaks of her emphatically throughout as “my wife.” It also contained directions that at his death a locket with her miniature, which he always wore, should be interred with him; and Mrs Fitzherbert was privately assured, on the duke of Wellington’s authority, that when the king was buried at Windsor the miniature was on his breast.
GEORGE V. [George Frederick Ernest Albert], king of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, emperor of India (1865- ), second son of King Edward VII., was born at Marlborough House, London, on the 3rd of June 1865. When four years old, he and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, two years his senior, were placed under the tutorship of John Neale Dalton, then curate of Sandringham. In 1877 the two princes became naval cadets on the “Britannia” at Spithead, where they passed through the ordinary curriculum, and in 1879 they joined H.M.S. “Bacchante” under the command of Captain Lord Charles Scott, making a voyage to the West Indies, in the course of which they were rated midshipmen. After a month at home in 1880 they returned to the ship to make another prolonged cruise in H.M.S. “Bacchante,” in the course of which they visited South America, South Africa, Australia, the Fiji Islands, Japan, Ceylon, Egypt, Palestine and Greece. A narrative of this voyage, The Cruise of H.M.S. “Bacchante,” compiled from the letters, diaries and notebooks of the princes, was published in 1886. At the close of this tour in 1882 the brothers separated. Prince George, who remained in the naval service, was appointed to H.M.S. “Canada,” commanded by Captain Durrant, on the North American and West Indian station, and was promoted sub-lieutenant. On his return home he passed through the Royal Naval College at Greenwich and the gunnery and torpedo schools, being promoted lieutenant in 1885. A year later he was appointed to H.M.S. “Thunderer” of the Mediterranean squadron, and was subsequently transferred to H.M.S. “Dreadnaught” and H.M.S. “Alexandra.” In 1889 he joined the flagship of the Channel squadron, H.M.S. “Northumberland,” and in that year was in command of torpedo boat No. 79 for the naval manœuvres. In 1890 he was put in command of the gunboat H.M.S. “Thrush” for service on the North American and West Indian station. After his promotion as commander in 1891 he commissioned H.M.S. “Melampus,” the command of which he relinquished on the death of his brother, Albert Victor, the duke of Clarence, in January 1892, since his duties as eventual heir to the crown precluded him from devoting himself exclusively to the navy. He was promoted captain in 1893, rear-admiral in 1901, and vice-admiral in 1903. He was created duke of York, earl of Inverness, and Baron Killarney in 1892, and on the 6th of July 1893 he married Princess Victoria Mary (b. 26th May 1867), daughter of Francis, duke of Teck, and Princess Mary Adelaide, duchess of Teck, daughter of Adolphus Frederick, duke of Cambridge. Their eldest son, Prince Edward Albert, was born at White Lodge, Richmond, on the 23rd of June 1894; Prince Albert Frederick George was born at Sandringham on the 14th of December 1895; Princess Victoria Alexandra on the 25th of April 1897; Prince Henry William Frederick Albert on the 31st of March 1900; Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund on the 20th of December 1902; and Prince John Charles Francis on the 12th of July 1905. The duke and duchess of York visited Ireland in 1899, and it had been arranged before the death of Queen Victoria that they should make a tour in the colonies. On the accession of King Edward VII. (1901) this plan was confirmed. They sailed in the “Ophir” on the 16th of March 1901, travelling by the ordinary route, and landed at Melbourne in May, when they opened the first parliament of the Commonwealth. They then proceeded to New Zealand, returning by way of South Africa and Canada. An official account of the tour was published by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace as The Web of Empire (1902). In November 1901 the duke was created prince of Wales. On the death of Edward VII. (May 6, 1910) he succeeded to the Crown as George V., his consort taking the style of Queen Mary.
GEORGE V., king of Hanover (1819-1878), was the only son of Ernest Augustus, king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland, and consequently a grandson of the English king George III. Born in Berlin on the 27th of May 1819, his youth was passed in England and in Berlin until 1837, when his father became king of Hanover and he took up his residence in that country. He lost the sight of one eye during a childish illness, and the other by an accident in 1833. Being thus totally blind there were doubts whether he was qualified to succeed to the government of Hanover; but his father decided that he should do so, as the law of the dissolved empire only excluded princes who were born blind. This decision was a fatal one to the dynasty. Both from his father and from his maternal uncle, Charles Frederick, prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1785-1837), one of the most influential men at the Prussian court, George had learned to take a very high and autocratic view of royal authority. His blindness prevented him from acquiring the shrewdness and knowledge of the world which had assisted his father, and he easily fell into the hands of unwise, and perhaps dishonest and disloyal, advisers. A man of deep religious feeling, he formed a fantastic conception of the place assigned to the house of Guelph in the divine economy, and had ideas of founding a great Guelph state in Europe. It is, therefore, not surprising that from the time of his accession in November 1851 he was constantly engaged in disputes with his Landtag or parliament, and was consequently in a weak and perilous position when the crisis in the affairs of Germany came in 1866. Having supported Austria in the diet of the German confederation in June 1866, he refused, contrary to the wishes of his parliament, to assent to the Prussian demand that Hanover should observe an unarmed neutrality during the war. As a result his country and his capital were at once occupied by the Prussians, to whom his army surrendered on the 29th of June 1866, and in the following September Hanover was formally annexed by Prussia. From his retreat at Hietzing near Vienna, George appealed in vain to the powers of Europe; and supported by a large number of his subjects, an agitation was carried on which for a time caused some embarrassment to Prussia. All these efforts, however, to bring about a restoration were unavailing, and the king passed the remainder of his life at Gmünden in Austria, or in France, refusing to the last to be reconciled with the Prussian government. Whilst visiting Paris for medical advice he died in that city on the 12th of June 1878, and was buried in St George’s chapel, Windsor. In February 1843 he had married Marie, daughter of Joseph, duke of Saxe-Altenburg, by whom he left a son and two daughters. His son, Ernest Augustus, duke of Cumberland (b. 1845), continued to maintain the claim of his house to the kingdom of Hanover.
By the capitulation of 1866 the king was allowed to retain his personal property, which included money and securities equal to nearly £1,500,000, which had been sent to England before the Prussian invasion of Hanover. The crown jewels had also been secretly conveyed to England. His valuable plate, which had been hidden at Herrenhausen, was restored to him in 1867; his palace at Herrenhausen, near Hanover, was reserved as his property; and in 1867 the Prussian government agreed to compensate him for the loss of his landed estates, but owing to his continued hostility the payment of the interest on this sum was suspended in the following year (see [Hanover]).
See O. Klopp, König Georg V. (Hanover, 1878); O. Theodor, Erinnerungen an Georg V. (Bremerhaven, 1878); and O. Meding, Memoiren zur Zeitgeschichte (Leipzig, 1881-1884).