King George

“ Of all the anecdotes connected with our men, none delighted King George so much as those concerning our coloured troops. A whole literature of negro yarns spread rapidly over Europe; most of them, I find, have long since reached the United States. The most lasting impression which I retain of the head of the British Empire is that he is very much of a human being. He loved just about the same things as the normal American or Englishman loves—his family, his friends, his country, a good story, a pleasant evening with congenial associates. ”

“ No one imagined the King [99] would be the strongest and best King the Empire had ever seen. To him alone is to be ascribed the wonderful political solidarity of the British people. The masses always had a latent feeling that King George would make a great King.
His Majesty returned to the stand, and we marched past in double lines, the cavalry eight deep in fours, the artillery two guns abreast, the infantry in double lines of fours, eight men abreast. Then they defiled along the railway four deep to cheer His Majesty as his train passed. ”

“ Thou had'st to answer for the baseness of that thought to the King of Kings, George, when thou wentest forth—alone, no subject, courtier, friend, wife, or child to do thee service, journeying—not en prince George, no, not en prince! but as a naked soul to God. Thou said'st to me: "Get thee gone, John York, where I shall no more see thee." And when I returned: "Would'st thou have me leave thy country, sir?" thou answered'st, "Blow thy quarrelsome soul to the stars where my farthest bugle cries." ”

“ We are no longer without a leader. Our monarch has come to claim his throne, and, if necessary, to win it by the sword. This night King George sleeps in London. To-morrow he will sit upon the throne of England. God Save the King!"
But, though death might be the consequence, a brave cheer burst from the hearts of some of those who heard—some, but only a few, and among these were Geoffrey, Featherstone, and the grizzled colonels. ”

“ They all knew that King George was their lawful sovereign, and every fourth of June they met in the nearest town, to shout his name and drink his health on his birth-day, and felt very loyal and very proud of their sovereign. But they had never seen this famous king, and only knew of him by hearsay.
It was after all the great man of the [Pg 234] parish, the lord of the manor, to whom their real homage was given, whom they regarded as their legitimate ruler. ”

“ There is a conviction widespread among us—his own words, perhaps, have done most to create it—that King George is inspired, as no recent predecessor has been inspired, by the conception of kingship, that his is to be no rôle of almost indifferent abstinence from the broad processes of our national and imperial development. That greater public life which is above party and above creed and sect has, we are told, taken hold of his imagination ”

“ From the moment George distinguished himself on the continent of Europe, he became his enemy professed, and by his intrigues, endeavoured to unite the whole force of Europe against him. He had supplyed the late King of France with immense sums of money, he had put the whole force of Spain in motion, and waited only for a proper opportunity to declare openly against the King of Great-Britain. ”

“ There is no "sacred privilege that doth hedge about a king" in the British Empire, and King George is respected among us for his manliness, and we cheered him sincerely when he twice visited us in the trenches, for we do not believe to-day in the divine right of kings, neither do we believe in the divine right of majorities. ”

“ All here are your friends and friends of King George: if you go to the other islands you will have everything stolen from you." I replied that, on account of their goodwill and from a desire to serve him and his country, King George had sent out those valuable presents to him; "and will not you, Tinah, send something to King George in return?" "Yes," he said, "I will send him anything I have;" and then began to enumerate the different articles in his power, among which he mentioned the breadfruit. ”

“ King George, who, like most reigning sovereigns, is an indefatigable walker, used to start out every day in the late afternoon and come back just before dinner-time. He nearly always took a member of his suite with him; one of my inspectors would follow him. All the peasants round Aix knew the King by sight and raised their caps as he passed. He is very young in mind—in this respect, he has remained the midshipman of his boyhood—and he sometimes amused himself by playing a trick on the companion of his walk. ”

“ On the sixteenth of August, the King embarked at Orange-Holder, and landed two days afterwards at Greenwich. Every ship in the river saluted the royal vessel as it sailed, and multitudes thronged the banks of the Thames, uttering loud acclamations of joy at the arrival of the monarch. Yet George the First, a man of plain understanding, without ambition, the romance of monarchs, felt, it is said, that he had arrived to claim a crown not his own, and had an uncomfortable notion all his life, that he was somewhat of a character to which nature had little disposed him, an usurper. ”

“ If any person, of what degree soever, high or low, shall deny or gainsay our Sovereign Lord George the Fourth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Son and next Heir to our Sovereign Lord King George the Third, the last King, deceased, to be right Heir to the Imperial Crown of this United Kingdom, or that he ought not to enjoy the same, here is his Champion, who saith that he lieth, and is a false traitor ”

“ All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui where old King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; and old Queen Charlotte over her snuff and her tambour-frame. Most of the sturdy, gallant sons settled down after sowing their wild oats, and became sober subjects of their father and brother—not ill liked by the nation, which pardons youthful irregularities readily enough, for the sake of pluck, and unaffectedness, and good humour.
The boy is father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the world by a feat worthy of his future life. ”

“ Then she sprinkled him with the water of life, and George rose up again, as if he had been born anew, as fresh as a stag, and youth beamed from his countenance. ‘Oh, how heavily I have slept!’ said George, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes, indeed, you have slept heavily,’ said Goldenhair; ‘and if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have waked for ever and ever.’ When the old king saw that George had come to life again, and that he was younger and handsomer than before, he wanted to be made young again also. ”

“ During the first ten years of his reign he managed to reduce government to a shadow, and to turn the loyalty of his subjects at home into disaffection. Before twenty years were over he had forced the American colonies into revolt and independence, and brought England to what then seemed the brink of ruin. Work such as this has sometimes been done by very great men, and often by very wicked and profligate men; but George was neither profligate nor great. He had a smaller mind than any English king before him save James the Second. ”

“ George the Second, contradicting the silly presages drawn from parallels, which had furnished opposition with names of unfortunate Princes, who were the second of their name, as Edward, Richard, Charles, and James, terminated his career with glory both to himself and his people. He died, crowned with years and honours, and respected from success; which with the multitude is the same as being beloved. He left a successor in the vigour of youth, ready to take the reins, and a ministry universally applauded, united, and unembarrassed by opponents. ”

“ But a hard fortune had condemned him to be a king, and to begin by being the son of a king, and thus to find as the years went on increasing opportunity of gratifying all his meanest tastes and finding always around him the ready homage which accords its applause to the most ignoble caprices and the most wanton self-indulgence. The reign of George the Fourth saw great deeds and great men; it could have seen few men in all his realm less deserving a word of praise than George the Fourth. ”

“ How could the people but love a sovereign Duke who, when a child was born to him, asked citizens of good repute rather than of high rank to come and be gossips?
In the revolutionary war, Duke George fought like a hero. At home, he afforded refuge to bold but honest writers, driven from more mighty states. He beautified his city, improved the country; and, without being of great mental cultivation himself, he loved to collect around him, scholars, philosophers, artists, authors, gentlemen. ”

“ What King but might obtain some servile addresses against the most incorruptible House of Commons? Was prerogative the champion to resort to in defence of injured freedom? The invitation sent to the Danes by our short-sighted and ignorant ancestors, and the expedient of calling over the heir of the Crown of France by the barons in the reign of King John, were scarce more big with folly and indiscretion. What could triumphant rebellion have demanded more of a King than to dissolve one Parliament and expose himself to a new election amidst enraged subjects? ”

“ But Father-in-law George said "no." Anything that gives joy to others goes against his royal grain, gives him politico-economic dyspepsia. He doesn't want me to be popular,—neither me, nor Frederick Augustus, nor the baby.
George will be the next king, and if the Dresdeners or the Saxons want to "Hoch the King," they must "Hoch" George. They MUST. "It's their damned duty," says George the Pious, who never blasphemes on his own account, but allows himself some license concerning his subjects. ”

“ Aware of the designs of his enemies, King George made an appeal to the Nation, in which he said, that after his solemn assurances, and the opportunities he had taken to do everything that might tend to benefit the Church of England, it was unjust and ungrateful to doubt him, and he refused to believe that the people could be so far misled by false representations as to desire to place a Popish Pretender on the throne. ”

“ They had twisted daisy-chains round their own hats, and even decorated their flagstaff with a long garland, so they felt that they had done everything possible to manifest their loyalty to King George. ”

“ That derogatory doctrine, however, which proclaims "the king can do no wrong," has proved the evil genius of liberty, and the very soul of despotism. George the Fourth ever made it his shield, and was content to let the odium of his actions fall upon his ministers. But his majesty should have recollected that a king of England is not king by hereditary right. The nation is not a patrimony. ”

“ George, at the head of his victorious army took it; his detatchments over-run the whole province of Orleanois, even to Nevers: himself made a triumphant entry into Paris, and Philip the new French King hardly reigned in his capital, before he was obliged to fly from it. All Picardé was immediately conquered; the English themselves were amazed at the rapidity of their own success. Montar, Sens, Troyes, and Auxerre, opened their gates to the Conqueror. The strongest fortresses held out but a few days; so universal was the terror which spread over all France. ”

“ George is tall, meagre, melancholy in his aspect. Enthusiasm and disappointment have stamped a solemnity on his person, which rather creates pity than respect: he seems the phantom, which good-nature, divested of reflection, conjures up, when we think on the misfortunes, without the demerits, of Charles the First. ”

“ George having mentioned the late violation of the freedom of elections, conspiracies invented to give a colour to new oppressions, infamous informers, and the state of proscription in which he supposed every honest man to be, very gravely proposed, that if king George would relinquish to him the throne of Great Britain, he would, in return, bestow upon him the title of king in his native dominions, and invite all Other states to confirm it; he likewise promised to leave to king George his succession to the British dominions secure, whenever, in due course, his natural right should take place. ”

“ George the Fourth also now sleeps among his fathers and ancestors, who lie stretched out in effigies of stone upon their monuments, with stone heads on stony pillows, the balls of empire and sceptres in their hands, while round them in their lofty monuments repose the aristocracy of England, the stately dukes and bishops, lords and barons, who press around the king in death as they did in life—and he who will see them there in Westminster may do so on payment of one shilling and sixpence. ”

“ There was as much difference between it and other reptiles as between King George and other people."
"Is King George, then, different from other people?" I demanded.
"Of course," said the old man; "I have never seen him myself, but I have heard people say that he is a ten times greater man than other folks; indeed, it stands to reason that he must be different from the rest, else people would not be so eager to see him. Do you think, child, that people would be fools enough to run a matter of twenty or thirty miles to see the king, provided King George—"
"Haven't the French a king?" ”

“ He has a frank, generous, unspoiled nature, is quick in apprehension, deliberate in thought, careful in expression, controlled by a far-reaching consciousness of duty and is animated by a vivid sense of his exalted mission. He is a keen sportsman, an admirable father and husband, and a lovable man."
King George has also been trained Imperially. He has trod the soil of his empire in every part of the globe and visited seas and lands which no other British sovereign ever saw ”