The Prince of Wales, who had come of age in the summer of 1783, had at once begun to make himself notorious for the violence of his opposition to his father's ministers, carrying the openness of his hostility so far as, during the Westminster election to drive about the streets with a carriage and all his servants profusely decorated with Fox's colors; and, still more discreditably, by most unmeasured profligacy of all kinds. The consequence was that he soon became deeply involved in debt, so deeply that, in 1787, a member of Fox's party gave notice of his intention to move that the Parliament should pay his debts and increase his income. Pitt, without specifying his reasons, avowed that he should feel it his duty to oppose any grant of such a character; but another member of Parliament, Mr. Rolle, one of the members for Devonshire, being trammelled by no such feeling of responsibility, expressed a similar resolution in language which contained an allusion perfectly understood on both sides of the House. He said that "the question thus proposed to be brought forward went immediately to affect our constitution in Church and State." And every one knew that he was referring to a report which had recently become general, that the Prince was married to a Roman Catholic lady of the name of Fitzherbert. No direct notice was taken of this allusion at the moment, Fox himself, who had the chief share of the Prince's confidence, being accidentally absent; but a day or two afterward he referred to Rolle's speech with great indignation, declaring that it referred to a "low, malicious calumny" which had no foundation whatever, and "was only fit to impose on the lowest order of persons." Being pressed as to the precise force of his assertion, and being asked whether it meant more than that under the existing laws, such as the Royal Marriage Act, there had been no marriage, because there could have been no legal marriage, he declared that he meant no such evasion, but that no marriage ceremony, legal or illegal, had ever taken place; and farther, that in saying this he was speaking on the direct authority of the Prince himself. No more degrading act stains the annals of British royalty. For the fact was true-the very next evening Fox learned the deceit which the Prince had practised on him from a gentleman who had been one of the witnesses to the marriage, which had been solemnized by a Protestant clergyman fifteen months before.[114] And his indignation was such that for some time afterward he abstained from all interference in the Prince's affairs; while the language held by the Prince's other confidant, Mr. Sheridan, was so evasive as to betray a consciousness that whatever had occurred would not bear the light of day; so that there were very few to whom the truth or falsehood of the report was a subject of interest who felt any uncertainty on the subject.
It may, probably, be regarded as fortunate for the peace of the kingdom that the Prince, who eventually became King George IV., left behind him no issue from his marriage with the Princess, the failure of heirs of his body thus removing any temptation to raise the question whether he had not himself forfeited all right to succeed to the throne by his previous marriage to a Roman Catholic. A clause of the Bill of Rights provides that any member of the royal family who should marry a Roman Catholic (with the exception of the issue of princesses who may be the wives of foreign princes) shall by that marriage be rendered incapable of inheriting the crown of England. And though the Royal Marriage Act (which, as we have seen, had been recently passed) had enacted that no marriage of any member of the royal family contracted without the consent of the reigning sovereign should be valid, it by no means follows that an invalidity so created would exempt the contractor of a marriage with a Roman Catholic, which as an honorable man he must be supposed to have intended to make valid, from the penalties enacted by the Bill of Rights. It is a point on which the most eminent lawyers of the present day are by no means agreed. The spirit of the clause in that bill undoubtedly was, that no apparent or presumptive heirs to the crown should form a matrimonial connection with any one who should own allegiance to a foreign power, and that spirit was manifestly disregarded if a prince married a Roman Catholic lady, even though a subsequent law had enacted a conditional invalidity of such a marriage. We may find an analogy to such a case in instances where a man has abducted a minor, and induced her to contract a marriage with himself. The lady may not have been reluctant; but the marriage has been annulled, and the husband has been criminally prosecuted, the nullity of the marriage not availing to save him from conviction and punishment. A bigamous marriage is invalid, but the bigamist is punished. And, apart from any purely legal consideration, it may be thought that public policy forbids such a construction of law as would make the illegality or invalidity of an act (and all illegal acts must be more or less invalid) such a protection to the wrong-doer as would screen him from punishment.
Whatever may be the judgment formed on the legal aspect and merits of the case, the conduct of the Prince could not fail to give the great body of the people, justly jealous at all times of their national adherence to truthfulness and honesty, a most unfavorable impression of his character. As has been already mentioned, Fox was so indignant at having been made the instrument to assure the Parliament and the nation of a falsehood, that he for a time broke off all communication with him.[115] Yet a singular caprice of fortune, or, it would be more proper to say, a melancholy visitation of Providence, before the end of the following year led Fox to carry his championship of the same Prince who had so abused his confidence to the length of pronouncing the most extravagant eulogies on his principles, and on his right to the confidence and respect of the nation at large. In the autumn of 1788 the King fell into a state of bad health, which in no long time affected his mind, and, by the middle of November, had so deranged his faculties as to render him incapable of attending to his royal duties, or, in fact, transacting any business whatever. Parliament was not sitting, but its re-assembling had been fixed for the 4th of December, and before that day arrived the King's illness had assumed so alarming a character, and it appeared so unsafe to calculate on his immediate recovery, that the minister summoned a Privy Council, the summons being addressed to the members of the Opposition as well as to his own followers, to receive the opinions of the physicians in attendance on his Majesty, as a necessary foundation for the measures which he conceived it to be his duty to propose to Parliament. Those opinions were, that it was almost certain that the disease would not be permanent, though no one could undertake to fix its duration with the least appearance of probability. And, as the royal authority could not be left in abeyance, as it were, for an uncertain period, it was indispensable to appoint a Regent to conduct the affairs of the kingdom till the King should, happily, be once more in a condition to resume his functions.