Yet, memorable as the reforms which it witnessed were destined to make it, no reign ever commenced with more sinister omens than that at which we have now arrived. The new King had not been on the throne a month, when a conspiracy was discovered, surpassing in its treasonable atrocity any that had been heard of in the kingdom since the days of the Gunpowder Plot; and, even before those concerned in that foul crime had been brought to punishment, the public mind was yet more generally and profoundly agitated by a scandal which, in one point of view, was still more painful, as in some degree involving the whole kingdom in its disgrace.
The marriage of the present sovereign to Mrs. Fitzherbert has already been mentioned. A few years afterward, in the year 1795, regarding that marriage as illegal, he had contracted a second with his cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. But, even in royal families, a more unfortunate alliance had never taken place. They had never met till she arrived in England for the wedding; and, as he had never professed any other motive for consenting to the match than a desire to obtain the payment of his debts, he did not think it necessary to disguise his feelings, or to change his habits, or even to treat her with decency for a single day. On his very first introduction to her he behaved to her with marked discourtesy.[183] Shortly after the marriage he formally separated himself from her, and, both before and after the separation, lived in undisguised licentiousness. She, on her part, indignant at his neglect and infidelity, and exasperated at the restrictions which he presently placed on her intercourse with their only child, made no secret of her feelings, and on many occasions displayed such disregard of the ordinary rules of prudence and propriety, that he had some color for charges of infidelity to her marriage vows which, after a few years, he brought against her. The King, her uncle, could not refuse to appoint a commission to investigate the truth of the accusation; but the commissioners unanimously acquitted her of any graver fault than imprudence. She was again received at court, from which she had been excluded while the inquiry was pending; but her husband's animosity toward her was not appeased. As time wore on, and as the King's derangement deprived her of her only protector, it even seemed as if he desired to give it all the notoriety possible, till at last, wearied out by his implacable persecution, she sought and obtained his permission to quit the country and take up her abode abroad. It was a most unfortunate resolution on her part. She fixed her residence in Italy, where she gradually learned to neglect the caution which she had observed in England, till, after a year or two, reports arose of her intimacy with a servant whom she had raised from a menial situation to that of the chief officer of her household, and whom she admitted to a familiarity of intercourse which others besides her husband thought quite incompatible with innocence. He sent agents into Italy to inquire into the truth of those rumors; and their report so greatly confirmed them that, even before the King's death, he laid it before the Prime-minister, with a demand that he should at once take steps to procure him a divorce, in which he professed to believe that the Princess herself would willingly acquiesce. He was so far correct, that her legal advisers were willing to advise her to consent to "a formal separation, to be ratified by an act of Parliament." But such an arrangement fell far short of the Prince's wishes. The Princess Charlotte, the heiress to his throne, had died in childbirth two years before, and he was anxious to be set free to marry again. The ministers were placed in a situation of painful embarrassment. There was an obvious difficulty in pointing out to one who already stood toward them in the character of their sovereign, and who must inevitably soon become so, that his own conduct made the prospect of obtaining a divorce from the Ecclesiastical Courts hopeless; and the only other expedients calculated to attain his end, "a direct application to Parliament for relief, founded upon the special circumstances of the case," or "a proceeding against the Princess for high-treason," were but little more promising. Indeed, it was afterward ascertained to be the unanimous opinion of the judges that the charge of high-treason could not be legally sustained, since the individual who was alleged to be the partner in the criminality imputed to her was a foreigner, and therefore, "owing no allegiance to the crown," could not be said to have violated it.[184]
He chafed under their resistance to his wish, and would have deprived them of their offices, could he have relied on any successors whom he might give them proving more complaisant; but, before he could make up his mind, the death of George III. forced upon both him and them the consideration of his and his wife's position, since it made it necessary to remodel the prayer for the royal family, and instantly to decide whether her name and title as Queen were to be inserted in it. He was determined that they should not be mentioned; and, as the practice of praying for a Queen Consort by name appeared not to have been invariable, they were willing to gratify him on this point, though it was evidently highly probable that she would consider this as a fresh insult, sufficient to justify her in carrying out a threat, which she had recently held out, of returning to England. Her ablest advisers did not, indeed, regard it in this light, since the prayer as now framed implored the Divine protection for "all the royal family" in general terms, in which she might be supposed to be included, and made no separate mention of any member of the family.[185] But, unfortunately, she was much more under the influence of counsellors who were neither lawyers nor statesmen, but who only desired to use her as a tool to obtain notoriety for themselves. A long negotiation ensued. It was inevitable that some application should be made to Parliament in connection with her affairs, since the annuity which had been settled upon her by Parliament in 1814, on the occasion of her departure from England, had expired with the life of the late King. And the ministers proposed that that annuity should now be raised from L35,000 to L50,000, on condition of her remaining abroad, having, by their positive refusal to concur in any proceedings against her while she remained abroad, extorted the King's acquiescence in this proposal, though he called it a "great and painful sacrifice of his personal feelings." They sought to conciliate her acceptance of it by mentioning her in it by her title of "Queen," and by coupling with it a sanction to her appointment of her law-officers, an Attorney and Solicitor General, an act which could only be exercised by a Queen. And, though a part of the condition of her residence abroad required that she should do so under some other title, that seemed only a conforming to an ordinary practice of royal princes on their travels. At the same time, the ministers stated frankly to Mr. Brougham, a lawyer of the highest reputation as an advocate, whom she had appointed her Attorney-general, that, if she should reject the offer, and come to England, as she had already announced her intention of doing, such a course would leave them no alternative, but would compel them to institute proceedings against her.
Eventually she preferred the advice of others to that of Mr. Brougham, or, as it may, perhaps, be more consistent with the real fact to say, she yielded to her own feelings of hatred of her husband, which, it must be confessed, were far from unnatural. She believed, or professed to believe, that he had more to dread from an exposure of his conduct than she had from any revelations of her actions; and, under this impression, in the spring she crossed the Channel and took up her residence in London. It was a step which seemed to Lord Liverpool to leave him no alternative, and, in consequence, he at once took the course which he had from the beginning conceived her arrival would render indispensable. He brought down to Parliament a royal message from the King, announcing that her return to England had made it necessary to communicate to the Houses documents relating to her conduct since her departure from the kingdom, which he recommended to their immediate and serious attention. He proposed the appointment by ballot of a committee of the House of Lords to examine those documents; and when the committee had reported that the documents containing "allegations deeply affecting the honor of the Queen, etc., ... appeared to the committee calculated to affect not only the honor of the Queen, but also the dignity of the crown and the moral feelings and honor of the country, so that in their opinion, they should become the subject of a solemn inquiry, which might be best effected in the course of a legislative proceeding," he introduced a "Bill of Pains and Penalties" to deprive her of her title of Queen, and to annul her marriage.