By George! The Prince is in Debt

As we have seen, debt was something the Prince had begun piling up in his early teens. Some of it was the result of opportunistic place seekers who wanted his Highness in their debt. A much larger portion of it was gambling and partying. But it wasn’t until he acquired Carlton House that his debts hit astronomical figures.

One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, his debts were so high was not only that he wanted the best of everything, which, of course, he did, but also because he was being grossly overcharged simply because he was the Prince. If the Duke of Sussex paid 30 pounds for a silver embroidered waistcoat, the Prince was charged 150. It went like that for everything.

The Prince was a walking credit card. When he saw something he wanted, he’d say “Have it delivered to Carlton House and put it on my bill” He never asked how much something cost and never thought to question the merchants and contractors who billed him. More to the point, the King, who was scandalized by his son’s expenditures never thought to question the bills either.

When the King eventually did intervene in the Princes financial affairs, neither he nor the men he appointed ever went after the Prince’s creditors and questioned them about their bills. Of course, no one would expect the king to lower himself to such depths. But it is surprising that such a step never occurred to the Princes financial watchdogs.

This does not explain the whole matter of the Prince’s debts. Another important point is that the Prince seemed totally oblivious to the whole idea of money. It was something that was always there. No matter how much mom and dad might carry on about money, they pretty much gave the Prince whatever he wanted. Eventually.

To give you an example, when the Prince, actually King George the IV, died in 1830 an inventory of his possessions turned up 700 wallets. These wallets contained over 10,000 pounds! The guy didn’t pay any attention to money. Except when he wanted a lot of it ASAP.

Dad liked to carry on about the Prince being a slug. No industry, no desire to better himself or make himself productive. The bitter fact of the matter was dad wouldn’t let him be or do anything. With his other boys it was a simple matter of sending them to Germany to continue their “education” and then forgetting to allow them to return home.

He couldn’t do that to the Prince of Wales. The whole point to the Prince of Wales is that he would one day be king. But until that day, he was just the Prince. And since he refused, point blank, to allow the Prince any role whatsoever in government, and business was for the “Lower Sorts”, the Prince had little to do but go shopping. Boy, did he go shopping!
Anyway, as we rejoin his Highness we find him, once again, in financial peril. He goes to dad, hat in hand. Dad was willing to talk about it, with a few conditions.