By George! The King Drifts Along

Having lost one handler and gone on to another, King George IV lived… much as he had before.

Things certainly did not improve after Canning took office. The King took great pleasure in slighting Canning at every opportunity. Not to be wondered at, really, since Canning was opposed to nearly everything His Majesty wanted to do. The King’s foreign policy was, in essence, simple. The crowned heads of Europe should be united in their opposition to anything and everything democratic.

When The Times wrote that such an attitude was to be wondered at from a former disciple of Charles James Fox, His Majesty replied that he was now a royalist by trade. But the winds of change were blowing and Canning sought to take advantage of this. Not only for Whig policies at home, but trade advantages that were opening in Central and South America in those countries that were throwing off the Spanish yoke.

Recognizing their status as independent nations would garner favorable trade agreements. Everyone but the King considered this to be inevitable. In this, Canning was supported, hardly intentionally, by President James Monroe, who made it clear that any intervention in the Americas by a European power, for the sake of re-establishing Spanish sovereignty, would be considered an act of the utmost naughtiness, and the United States would take whatever action the situation called for.

This did not endear Canning to His Majesty. On December 31st 1824, England recognized Argentina, Mexico and Columbia as independent countries. Brazil soon followed. So upset with his own government was he that he refused to announce the treaties at the opening of Parliament. He let on that his gout was acting up, he couldn’t attend. Then to forestall any suggestion of being carried into Parliament, he mentioned that he couldn’t possibly speak because he lost his false teeth.

At least His Majesty was secure in the affections of those who visited him. Let the politicians and newspapers say what they might, his friends would stick by him. Friends like Mme de Lieven, who had this to report on the King’s sixty-first birthday. “Yesterday evening the King began to sing; in order to produce the sole musical sound of which his throat is capable, he closed his eyes and shed tears…I stifled my laughter…I really thought I should die, especially when I saw how affected the courtiers looked at the sight of royal tears.”

Wrote one historian; “Sometimes Mme de Liven was so bored that she felt close to tears herself.” The King liked things nice and predictable. So everything was nice and predictable. All meals at the same time. Dinner was followed by music, which was followed by various card games in the evening. The card games would be accompanied by brilliant conversation on all subjects with the wittiest repartee coming from the King himself…Sorry, I made up that last bit.

Mme de Liven said that the conversation was sometimes interesting, but usually it was “so stupid” that she began to doubt her own intelligence. One evening, the conversation was of such stunning banality that Mme de Liven seemed to have passed into a trance-like state. When she returned to the land of the living she found the King “gazing at Lady Conyngham with an expression in which somnolence battled against love; Lady Conyngham was staring at a beautiful emerald on her arm; her daughter was toying with a ruby hanging around her neck.”

As bad as this sounds, it WAS an improvement over getting drunk, going to his girlfriends house and chasing her around with a sword. Which, as some of my readers may remember, he did on a number of occasions while visiting Mrs Fitzhurbert. But nothing set the kings mind to rest like a building project. His latest was a grand project indeed. One that tens of thousands of visitors admire to this day. Buckingham Palace.

At the time, the building that occupied the site was Buckingham House, the London home of George the III and the Queen. This “modest” structure would not do, the King decided. The King wanted 500,000 pounds for the project. Parliament said 150,000 pounds, and you are lucky to get that. The King felt slighted. Someone suggested selling St James Palace to raise the money. Good site, lots of history, should be worth something. The King thought that was too steep a price to pay. If parliament wouldn’t see things his way, then he didn’t want a Buckingham Palace after all.

But he did. He went back for the money again and again until he got it. As soon as he had the green light, the King set John Nash, his favorite architect to work. The original estimate had been 252,690 pounds. That had been increased to 331,973 pounds with no end in sight. The final tally came in at over 700,000 pounds, excluding the marble entry arch; which now sits at the top of Park Lane.

The thing that really got people talking was the fact that while Buckingham Palace was going up, the King was also refurbishing Windsor Castle. And…he decided that Carlton House had to go. It simply was not grand enough for a King of England. This house was less than fifty years old, he had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on it; now it would torn down because it wasn’t grand enough. And he wondered why the Lesser Sorts didn’t like kings.

– Mr. Al