e Fourth came to an end. The death was
sudden, even when we consider that there had been for some time no hope
left of the King's recovery. George was sitting up in bed, and to all
outward appearance was not any worse than he had been for some days
before, when suddenly a startled expression came over his face, he leaned
his head on the shoulder of one of his attendants, was heard to say, "O
God, this is death," and then all was over.

The rupture of a blood-vessel proved to have been the immediate cause of
death, but ossification of some of the vessels near the heart had begun
years before and a complication of disorders had been gradually setting
in. The King's mode of life was not one which gave him any chance of
rallying against such disorders. He was reckless in his food and drink,
and had long been in the way of cheering and stimulating himself by
glasses of cherry-brandy taken at any moment of the day when the impulse
came upon {88} him. Shortly before his death George made an earnest
request to the Duke of Wellington, who was in constant attendance, that
he should be buried in the night-shirt which he was wearing at the time.
The Duke was somewhat surprised at this request, for one reason among
others that the garment in question did not seem likely to commend itself
as a shroud even to a sovereign less particular as to costume than George
the Fourth had been. During his later years, however, as we learn from
the testimony of Wellington himself, the King, who used to be the very
prince of dandies where his outer garments were concerned, had got into
the way of sleeping in uncleanly nightshirts and particularly dirty
night-caps. When the King was dead, Wellington noticed that there was a
red silk ribbon round his neck beneath the shirt. The ribbon was found
to have attached to it a locket containing a tiny portrait of Mrs.
Fitzherbert, perhaps the one only woman he had ever loved, perhaps, too,
the woman he had most deeply wronged. It seemed that at one period of
their love story the King and Mrs. Fitzherbert had exchanged small
portraits, each covered by half a cut diamond, and no doubt there was an
understanding that each should rest forever on the breast of its wearer.

[Sidenote: 1830--The character of George the Fourth]

Nothing in the story of George the Fourth's worthless and erring life is
more discreditable and dishonorable to him than the manner in which he
behaved to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the