, however, that the queen
objected to the associations of the place, and did not care to be
reminded of the time when her uncle had lived there so long in a
morganatic state of marriage.

At length the time came when the king, Parliament, and the people at
large insisted that the Prince of Wales should make a legal marriage,
and a wife was selected for him in the person of Caroline, daughter of
the Duke of Brunswick. This marriage took place exactly ten years after
his wedding with the beautiful and gentle-mannered Mrs. Fitzherbert.
With the latter he had known many days and hours of happiness. With
Princess Caroline he had no happiness at all.

Prince George met her at the pier to greet her. It is said that as he
took her hand he kissed her, and then, suddenly recoiling, he whispered
to one of his friends:

"For God's sake, George, give me a glass of brandy!"

Such an utterance was more brutal and barbaric than anything his bride
could have conceived of, though it is probable, fortunately, that she
did not understand him by reason of her ignorance of English.

We need not go through the unhappy story of this unsympathetic,
neglected, rebellious wife. Her life with the prince soon became one
of open warfare; but instead of leaving England she remained to set the
kingdom in an uproar. As soon as his father died and he became king,
George sued her for divorce. Half the people sided with the queen,
while the rest regarded her as a vulgar creature who made love to her
attendants and brought dishonor on the English throne. It was a sorry,
sordid contrast between the young Prince George who had posed as a sort
of cavalier and this now furious gray old man wrangling with his furious
German wife.

Well might he look back to the time when he met Perdita in the moonlight
on the Thames, or when he played the part of Florizel, or, better still,
when he enjoyed the sincere and disinterested love of the gentle woman
who was his wife in all but legal status. Caroline of Brunswick was
thrust away from the king's coronation. She took a house within sight of
Westminster Abbey, so that she might make hag-like screeches to the
mob and to the king as he passed by. Presently, in August, 1821, only
a month after the coronation, she died, and her body was taken back to
Brunswick for burial.

George himself reigned for nine years longer. When he died in 1830 his
executor was the Duke of Wellington. The duke, in examining the late
king'