| Victoria, Queen of England |
| by James Parton, 1868 |
|
Related topics: • About Queen Victoria |
The eldest son of George the Second, Prince Frederick, or the Prince of Wales, was stupid even for a prince. He passed his brief existence in political intrigues with his father's enemies, and in debauchery with the worst of the young nobility. No good or even graceful action relieves the tedious record of his life. We need only say of him -- for little else is known -- that he embittered his father's days, and that England was well rid of him before it came his turn to play the part of king. George the Third, the grandfather of Queen Victoria, was the son of this Prince Frederick.
George the Third, who plays so important a part in the history of the United States, was one of the most virtuous and most mischievous of kings. He was honest, charitable, and temperate; he was as good a father as an ignorant man can ever hope to be; he was an attentive and affectionate husband; he was a considerate and liberal master and patron. If he had been born to the inheritance of a small farm, -- if he had been a huntsman in Windsor Park, instead of lord of the castle, -- he would have lived happily and wisely, and all his native parish would have followed him mourning to the tomb. But alas for England, tax-paying England! it was his destiny to be styled king, and to indulge all his life the fond delusion that he really was a king.
With such a father as he had, it is not necessary to say that his early education was most grossly and shamefully neglected; and after his father's death, he fell under the influence of men and women who starved his intellect and fed his pride. Coming to the throne in his twenty-second year, ignorant of history, ignorant of the English people, totally unacquainted with the spirit of a constitutional government, equally obstinate and conscientious, the whole policy of his reign was erroneous. He displaced William Pitt, and promoted Bute. It was he, and only he, who exasperated into rebellion the most loyal of his subjects, -- the people of the American colonies. Instead of hailing, with joy the accession of Napoleon to supreme power in distracted France, instead of aiding him to bring order once more out of the chaos of that kingdom, instead of being his hearty friend and ally, as he ought to have been for England's sake, as well as for that of France and mankind, he squandered and mortgaged deep the resources of the wealthiest empire on earth, in waging and inciting war against the only man who had it in him to rescue France and prepare her for a nobler future. He drove Napoleon mad; he prepared for him the long series of victories which wasted his time, wasted his strength, and destroyed the balance between his reason and his passions.
When George the Third came to the throne in 1760, the national debt of England was one hundred and thirty millions of pounds. The American war raised it to two hundred and sixty millions. The insensate warfare against the French Revolution made it five hundred and seventy millions; and by the time Napoleon was safely landed in Saint Helena, the debt amounted to the inconceivable sum of eight hundred and sixty-five millions of pounds. It may be safely asserted, that every guinea of this debt was unnecessary, and all except a few millions of it may be considered the price which Great Britain has paid, or is to pay, for allowing four such men as the four Georges of Hanover to occupy the first place in the government, -- a place in which a wise and able man could do no very radical good, but one in which an incompetent man may work prodigious harm.
George the Third had fifteen children, of whom all but two survived him. Five of these children were sons, and all of them were robust and vigorous men. Down to a late period in the life of George the Third, no throne in Europe seemed so well provided as his with lineal heirs; and nothing was more improbable than that it should descend to a daughter of the fourth son, -- the Duke of Kent. The Prince of Wales, however, had but one legitimate child, the Princess Charlotte, and when she died, in 1817, there was no probability of her father having other legitimate issue. The Duke of York, the second son, a shameless debauchee, also died without legitimate children. The Duke of Clarence, the third son, who afterwards reigned as William the Fourth, had a large family; but, unfortunately, his wife, Queen Adelaide, was not the mother of them.
Next page
Pages: 1 >2 >3 >4 >5 >6 >7 >8 >9 >10 >11 >12 >13 >14 >15 >16 >17
Also on this site:
