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KING GEORGE IV

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King George IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1283

King Edward I of conquered .

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

King George IV “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1701

The Act of Settlement declared that those royals who chose to get married with Roman Catholics were to become ineligible for the line of succession to the throne of England. ANTI-CATHOLICISM HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1762

August 12, Thursday: George Augustus Frederick was born at St James’s Palace in , the eldest son of King George III. At birth he automatically became of Cornwall and Duke of . He would become popularly known as “Prinny” because a few days later the infant would be anointed as , , and to the British throne. George, the eldest son of George III, was born in 1762. George rebelled against his father’s strict discipline. At the age of eighteen he became involved with an actress, Mrs. Perdita Robinson. This was followed by a relationship with Lady Melbourne. The Prince of Wales also rebelled against his father’s political views. Whereas George III preferred Tory ministers, George, Prince of Wales, was friendly with the Whigs, Charles Fox and Richard Sheridan. In 1784 the Prince of Wales, met a fell in love with Mrs. , a Roman Catholic. Fitzherbert refused to become his mistress and eventually George agreed to marry her. The marriage was kept a secret as under the terms of 1772 Royal Marriages Act, it was illegal for a member of the royal family to marry a Roman Catholic. By the 1780s the Prince of Wales had become a gambler, a womanizer and a heavy drinker. He was deeply in debt and when agreed to increase his allowance, George III remarked that it was “a shameful squandering of public money to gratify the passions of an ill-advised young man.” The Prince of Wales continued to overspend and my 1795 he had debts of ?650,000. In an effort to persuade Parliament to pay off his debts, George agreed to marry his cousin, . After the birth of a daughter, Princess Charlotte, on 7th January 1796, the couple lived apart. In 1811 King George III suffered another bout of insanity. He was no longer able to continue with his royal duties and the Prince of Wales was appointed . For years the Prince of Wales had been making promises to the Whigs that he would favour their party when he replaced his Tory father. However, this did not happen, and he quickly became an ultra Tory supporting the policies of Lord Liverpool and his government. In his youth the Prince of Wales agreed with his friend Charles Fox about the unfairness of the laws that discriminated against Roman Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists. Once in power George changed his views and became a strong opponent of Catholic Emancipation. He also abandoned his support for those Whigs who were arguing for parliamentary reform. The Prince of Wales was impressed by the work of the architect, John Nash. He commissioned him to design Regent’s Park and its environs of curved terraces. He also arranged for Nash to create Buckingham Palace out of Buckingham House and the rebuilding of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. On the death of his father in 1820 George became king. Caroline returned to England to claim her rights as Queen. George IV persuaded Lord Liverpool and his government to bring in an Act of parliament to deprive her of the title Queen and to declare the marriage “for ever wholly dissolved, annulled and made void”. The Whigs opposed the measure and their were public demonstrations against the new king. Queen Caroline appeared at George’s but she was turned away from the doors of Abbey. This resulted in further public demonstrations but this came to an end when Caroline died suddenly on 7th August 1821. George’s indulgent lifestyle seriously damaged his health. By the 1820s he was extremely overweight and was addicted to both alcohol and laudanum. George IV also began showing signs of insanity. He told people that he had been a soldier and insisted he had fought at the Battle of Waterloo. The king became more and more a recluse at Windsor and eventually died in 1830. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

September 18, Saturday: The royal infant born on August 12th was baptized George Augustus Frederick by Thomas Secker, . His godparents were his relative the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, for whom the , , stood proxy, his relative the Duke of , and his maternal grandmother the Dowager .

King George IV “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1772

In England, the Royal Marriage Act required that any future marriage contract entered into by any royal would require the prior formal approval of the royal family — else said contract was to be regarded as illegal and illicit.

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King George IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1783

August 12, Tuesday: As George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales came to be 21 years of age, the British Parliament granted him an annual royal stipend of £60,000, and his father King George III granted him an additional annual stipend of £50,000. He would establish his residence at and there live a profligate life.

September 7, Sunday: The initial visit of George, Prince of Wales to the spas of Brighton, England. He had come to stay for awhile with his uncle, the , at Grove House. It would appear that the feud between the Duke and his brother the King (a feud that had been created by the Duke’s marriage), was what would encourage the young Prince of Wales to adopt the rebellious that would characterize the remainder of his life. Although the town was accustomed to visits by royalty, a salute was fired by the town’s battery and in the course of that, unfortunately, a gunner was killed.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King George IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1784

July 23: The 2d visit by George, Prince of Wales, to the town of Brighton, England. This time he had come at the advice of physicians who suggested that the town’s seawater cure might ameliorate the prince’s swollen throat glands. During the course of his stay the prince would acquire some disreputable companions, and this would cause gossip.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project King George IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1785

June: A 3d visit by George, Prince of Wales, to the spas of the town of Brighton, England.

December 15, Thursday: George, Prince of Wales got married in secret, illegally, with Mrs. Maria Anne Smythe Weld Fitzherbert. The bride was a devout Roman Catholic who at the age of 18 had gotten married with Edmund Weld, but had been soon widowed and had gotten married a 2d time, with Thomas Fitzherbert — and had again been soon widowed. She was therefore twice-widowed, and had become wealthy, but was still in her 20s. The wedding was illegal in that it was in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772. This illegal ceremony was enacted in the bride’s home on Park Street in near London. The bride formally agreed to total secrecy in regard to this union. Before this union with Mrs. Fitzherbert, it seems likely that the Prince of Wales had been generating a series of royal bastards. His assignations had included, but not been limited to, • Mary Robinson, an actress who had needed to be bought off with a generous pension after she threatened to sell his letters to the newspapers, • Grace Elliott, the divorced wife of a physician, and • Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey.

In later life his mistresses would include, but not be limited to, • Isabella Seymour-Conway, • the Marchioness of Hertford, and • Elizabeth Conyngham, Marchioness Conyngham.

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

King George IV “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1786

July: George, Prince of Wales had already arrived in Brighton, England and had been waiting for two weeks, perhaps at the farmhouse of Thomas Kemp on the Steine River, when his illicit bride, Mrs. Maria Anne Smythe Weld Fitzherbert, herself arrived in that town, probably staying on Marlborough Row. For the duration of this visit the couple would be together but would refrain from residing in the same house. A lease would be taken on the Kemp farmhouse in the name of Louis Weltje, and subsequently this structure would be replaced by a fantastical structure that would be known as the “Marine Pavilion,” designed by John Nash in an “Indian Gothic” inspired loosely by the Taj Mahal if you can imagine that austere mausoleum with extravagantly colorful pseudo-Indian and pseudo-Chinese interiors.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

King George IV “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1787

George, Prince of Wales was so deeply in debt due to his exorbitant lifestyle that he had been forced to quit Carlton House and go reside at the residence of Mrs. Fitzherbert. His allies in the House of Commons introduced a bill to relieve his debts by means of a parliamentary grant. He allowed the Whig leader, Charles James Fox, to assert that the abundant rumors that the Prince was secretly married to a Catholic divorcée were a falsehood. Although Mrs. Fitzherbert was outraged by these proceedings, she could do nothing. The Parliament would vote the Prince £161,000 with which to pay his debts and £60,000 for improvements to his Carlton House.

Summer: Near Brighton, the structure on the former Thomas Kemp farm on the Steine River, known as the “Marine Pavilion,” was ready for occupancy by George, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of England, and his illegal bride, Mrs. Maria Anne Smythe Weld Fitzherbert. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1788

Summer: The mental health of King George III of England deteriorated. He was, however, still allowed to discharge some of his duties, and so he would declare the Parliament to be prorogued from September 25th to November 20th. During this prorogation he would become so deranged as to pose a threat to his own life.

November 5, Wednesday: King George III physically assaulted his high-spirited eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, attempting to smash his head against a palace wall. They needed to muscle the monarch into a straight-jacket. One observer would assert that foam had been issuing from the king’s mouth, and that his bloodshot eyes had the appearance of currant jelly. Eventually the doctors would have a special iron chair constructed to restrain their patient. They would be placing poultices of Spanish Fly and mustard all over the body of the monarch in order to draw out “evil humours.”

November 20, Thursday: The body of Headley was interred in the cemetery of North Walsham, Norfolk near his father and two sisters. His widow Elizabeth Carmody Headley would remarry, but shortly afterward she also would die. The inscription on the headstone would read “Henry Headley, A.B., Died 15th November, 1788, aged 23.”

When the reconvened, King George III was unable to deliver the customary Speech from the Throne. The Parliament found itself in a considerable bind, for it was a well established tradition that it could not proceed to business before the delivery of this address. Nevertheless, it began to debate the formation of a Regency. In the House of Commons, the attitude of Charles James Fox was that George, Prince of Wales was automatically entitled to exercise sovereignty during the King’s incapacity. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, however, argued that, in the absence of a statute to the contrary, the right to choose a Regent inhered in the Parliament. He asserted that although said Prince of Wales might be the nation’s obvious choice as Regent, without parliamentary authority he could have “no more right ... to assume the government, than any other individual subject of the country.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1789

April: By this point the doctors of King George III had managed to persuade themselves that their monarch had recovered from his madness, and he was allowed to resume his royal duties. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1795

April 8, Wednesday: The problem of George, Prince of Wales’s debts, which by this point amounted to the extraordinary sum of £630,000, was being reduced at least temporarily by a grant from the English Parliament of an additional stipend of £65,000 per annum. His father King George III had been refusing to come to his aid unless he got married with his squat cousin, Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Finally the Prince of Wales became acquiescent and this unlikely couple underwent a wedding of convenience at the , St James’s Palace. The bridegroom was drunk. The relationship would be consummated twice on the 1st night and once on the 2d, but the couple would formally separate after the birth in 1796 of their child Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales. They would live separately for the remainder of their lives and Caroline would be prevented from attending her husband’s coronation (her subjects hissing her as her entry was being blocked by 20 enormous prizefighters attired as royal pages). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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The John Fitch after whom Fitchburg, Massachusetts would choose to consider that it had been named died at the age of 87.

JOHN FITCH AN EARLY SETTLER OF ASHBY AFTER A CONTEST WITH THE INDIANS IN WHICH TWO SOLDIERS WERE SLAIN JENNINGS & BLODGETT WAS WITH HIS FAMILY TAKEN TO CANADA JULY 1746 WAS RANSOMED 1747 & AFTER HIS RETURN PROCURED THE INCORPORATION OF ASHBY MARCH 1767 WAS THE FIRST MODERATOR THE FIRST & WITH J. LOCKE & J. JONES WAS SELECTMAN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE TOWN. DIED APR. 8. 1795. ÆT 87 HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1796

After the birth of Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, George, Prince of Wales and his official wife Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales separated. Each would be seeking comfort elsewhere — but of course this is the sort of world in which there are no level playing fields and it is considerably easier for a royal husband than for his official wife to get away with multiple sexual liaisons with others.

January 7, Thursday: Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales was born at Carleton House, Westminster, in Middlesex. This was an enormous infant. Her father being Prince Regent George, and her mother being his wife Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel –and there being no closer candidates– she would of course be heir presumptive to the throne of Great Britain.

January 10, Sunday: George, Prince of Wales made out a new will leaving all his property to “Maria Fitzherbert, my wife” with the exception of one shilling to Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales.

Spring: The Waleses, George, Prince of Wales and Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, mutually agreed to separate, with the husband confiding to Malmesbury that the wife would not wash or wipe her private parts. Each would be seeking multiple sexual liaisons with others, but of course as you are well aware — this was the sort of world in which it would be far easier for a royal husband to get away with being an obese wealthy alley cat than for a royal wife to get away with being an Italian servant’s obese wealthy sex kitten. In order to tabs on her, the husband arranged that his mistress, Lady Jersey, remain his wife’s .

April: George, Prince of Wales wrote to his estranged official wife Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales that “We have unfortunately been oblig’d to acknowledge to each other that we cannot find happiness in our union. ... Let me therefore beg you to make the best of a situation unfortunate for us both.”

June: Lady Jersey, the mistress of George, Prince of Wales who had been keeping tabs for him on his estranged official wife Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales and had come to be despised by the princess, resigned from her position as Lady of the Bedchamber.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December: The formal separation agreement of the Waleses, George, Prince of Wales and Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, was finalized. She was a big flirt: “I have a bedfellow as often as I like — nothing is more wholesome.”

Maintaining the Princess-of-Wales Tradition HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1797

George, Prince of Wales had achieved a weight of 17 stone 7 pounds (245 lb), and was on a roll.

August: George, Prince of Wales had long since moved away from his official residence and at this point his estranged wife Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales also removed herself, taking up habitations at The Vicarage or Old Rectory in Charlton, London. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1798

Summer: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, estranged wife of George, Prince of Wales, took up residence in Montague House at the edge of Park in Blackheath. Her daughter the Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales would be under the care of a governess in a nearby mansion during the summers and the mother would visit her often. Caroline would also adopt 8 or 9 of the poor children who were being “fostered” to the families of that district. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1800

May 15, Thursday: King George III had made himself deeply unpopular and several assassination attempts had already been made. During the day a shot intended for him, in Hyde Park, struck the man standing beside him. On this evening two pistol shots rang out while he was in the royal box of the Drury Lane Theatre. The bullets only just missed but we have a report that the monarch remained in the box, nodding off at one point during the performance. The assailant would be captured and adjudged insane. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1801

King George III continued in ill-health and in this year there was another mental breakdown. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1802

Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, mother of Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, adopted a 3-month-old infant, William Austin. In a later timeframe her husband George, Prince of Wales would make the accusation, based upon a report from her near neighbor Lady Douglas, that this infant actually had been her bastard, produced by one or another of her paramours during their estrangement, and that Lady Caroline had admitted to her in a private conversation that she was pregnant, and then had admitted also that Willi was her own son (hospital records would reveal, however, that the infant had been born to an unemployed dock worker and his wife Sophia Austin — and the commission would seek out Sophia Austin and find this to be corroborated by her). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1803

At this point the British Parliament increased the stipend of George, Prince of Wales by a further £60,000. Their attitude, obviously, was that if they needed to choose between encouraging the disgraceful antics of a monarch who was a national embarrassment, versus dealing with an ept monarch who was throwing his weight around politically, for sure they were going to choose to encourage the conduct that was merely a national embarrassment! The Prince of Wales’s debts dating to 1795 and before would finally be cleared, by 1806 — although the debts he had incurred since 1795 would remain unresolved. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1804

There was a custody dispute over the child Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, the product of the official marriage of George, Prince of Wales with Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales.

This portrait by Sir indicates that (although she definitely did have bad teeth and halitosis and inadequate standards of personal hygiene) the princess had not yet become middleaged or obese. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1805

Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales had some sort of falling out with neighbors Sir John and Lady Douglas. They would assert that they received letters from her, that were obscene and harassing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1806

May 29, Thursday: The Prime Minister, Lord Grenville, presented evidence to King George III of the various indiscretions of Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, and the monarch authorized a Secret Commission of cabinet ministers to examine the witnesses who had provided the damning testimony. The matter would come to be referred to as the “Delicate Investigation.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: May Meeting in town 29 of 5 M / In the silent part of our first meeting my mind was uncommonly favor’d to keep from roving thoughts & near to the sorce of life. I beg to be duly sensible & thankful for all my favors which are many It is a precious enjoyment to feel an easy access to the fountain Dear Abigail was sweetly concerned in supplication, Whereby I felt inwardly helped & it seem’d as if my spirit join’d with hers in a remarkable manner In the last meeting the business labor’d. & I feel very thankful for not having said any thing to wound my own mind or the cause tho’ I had like to have spoken once as would have done me much hurt. ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June 1, Sunday: Bavaria officially became a kingdom under the terms of the Treaty of Pressburg.

The “Delicate Investigation” into the indiscreet conduct of Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, estranged wife of George, Prince of Wales, formally began.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 1 of 6 M 1806 / It has been a day of deep exercise, even deep trial... In the morning meeting D Buffum deliver’d a short testimony impressing the necessity of the improvement of our time from the Parable of the ten Virgins... In the afternoon we were silent & after meeting went in company with Obadiah Williams Phebe Earle & Mary Ann Smith out to D Buffums, & tho’ my company was agreeable & of the best kind yet could not join much in conversations. ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Our national birthday, Friday the 4th of July:1 Ebenezer French caused the attention of an assembly of Maine Republicans to focus on “the glorious instrument written by the illuminous JEFFERSON, called the ‘Declaration of American Independence.’”2 Although other speechmakers of this year were merely crediting the hand of Thomas Jefferson with having drawn up the document, these Republican partisans were averring that their guy’s thoughts had conceived it. During this year, however, the murder of Jefferson’s friend and mentor George Wythe, poisoned by an angry relative,3 was attracting additional attention in regard to the authorship of the Declaration of Independence, for among the Wythe papers was discovered a copy of a draft of the document that, to appearances, Jefferson had sent him at the time.4 Already the easy assumption was being made, that whatever differed from this draft was the work of others in the Continental Congress and that whatever was in this draft had been created by Mr. Jefferson alone, ignoring the stated fact that in the preparation of this draft Mr. Jefferson had not only been acting under instruction but also had taken at least a part of that instruction back to his chamber that night with him in writing. The nuance, that what was in this rough draft might be or might not have been the originative thought of Jefferson himself, was already being lost on everyone.

In Bennington, Vermont a couple of elderly Revolutionary officers marched in the town parade. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY

British forces defeated the French at Maida in Calabria and then returned to .

The Lord Commissioners of the “Delicate Investigation” ruled that George, Prince of Wales did not have grounds for divorce from Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, because they had produced no evidence of her having committed any actual crime. They did consider, however, that her indiscreet conduct entitled him to severely limit her further contact with their daughter, Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales (henceforward she would be able to see her daughter only once a week at most, and only in the presence of her mother –her daughter’s grandmother– the Dowager Duchess of Brunswick).

1. This was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, or Hathorne’s 2nd birthday. 2. AN ORATION, PRONOUNCED BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN INHABITANTS, OF PORTLAND, ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1806, BEING THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE (Portland ME: 1806) 3. Boyd, Julian P. “The Murder of George Wythe,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, XII (1955):513-74 4. Boyd, Julian P. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: THE EVOLUTION OF THE TEXT AS SHOWN IN FACSIMILES OF VARIOUS DRAFTS BY ITS AUTHOR, THOMAS JEFFERSON. Princeton NJ: 1945, 43-45 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1807

With George, Prince of Wales’s encouragement, his wife Caroline was falsely accused of bearing a bastard child, and this led to a officious Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into Princess Caroline’s conduct and a revelation that although she had not produced any such child, she was indeed being extraordinarily indiscreet. This would lead to the little girl in question being placed under the care of King George III. (However, that monarch continued in ill-health and there would be yet another mental breakdown.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1810

Late in the year: Following the death of his youngest daughter, Princess Amelia, King George III of England was once again overcome by his affliction. This time there would be no return from the insanity and to the horror of the nation his embarrassment of a son George, Prince of Wales would need to be appointed regent, to carry on after a fashion the royal duties. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1811

January 5, Saturday: George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, began to serve as Regent of the of Great Britain and Ireland due to the incapacitation of his father King George III (it is now inferred that the father’s incapacitating illness, an illness which had turned his urine blue and had resulted in episodes of insanity, had been porphyria). For most of George’s regency and subsequent reign, Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, as Prime Minister, would be in de facto control of the British government, while George, as “His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Regent of the United and Ireland,” gave himself over as always to self-indulgence.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 5 of 1 Mo// Occupied at Trade Sister Eliza & Mary were our visitors today. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1814

When London celebrated the defeat of Napoléon, Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, officially the wife of Prince Regent George, was excluded from the noble parties. For two decades she had lived as a royal outcast, and has reached the age of 46. She was persuaded to quit England and its dominions in return for £35,000 per annum, payable as long as she continued to stay away. She acquired an Italian courier named Bartolomeo Pergami or Bergami as major domo of her household and moved with him and his entire family into the Villa d’Este on Lake Como.

Nevertheless she continued to publicly assert her rights as Queen Consort.

July 9, Saturday: Carl Maria von Weber arrived in Bad Liebenwerda north of Dresden for a cure (he has been struck recently with unexplained vomiting).

July 12, Tuesday: Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales had been becoming more and more sympathetic with the position of her mother Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in the ongoing struggle between her mother and her father George, Prince of Wales. The relationship between father and daughter was deteriorating. At this point he advised his daughter that her household staff was being replaced and that she would be confined at in Windsor with her only permitted contact being a once-a-week visit from his mother Queen Consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The princess would soon abscond to her mother’s house in Bayswater, and Lord Henry Brougham would have a hard time persuading her that she must return to her father’s strictures. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 8, Monday: The Reverend Wilkes Allen, who had been in 1806 been commissioned as the Chaplain of the 3d Regiment, 2d Brigade, 3d Division, was honorably discharged.

Peace negotiations between Great Britain and the United States of America began at Ghent.

To the distress of Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, her mother Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales on this day departed anonymously (as the “Countess of Wolfenbüttel”) from Britain to take advantage of the settlement arranged by her father George, Prince of Wales of an annual allowance of £35,000 payable for so long as she continued to absent herself from England and England’s dominions. As the ship left the harbor she was observed to be weeping. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1815

A not-terrible depiction of Prince Regent George in this year (he who would become King George IV of HDT WHAT? INDEX

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England):

Jane Austen despised this royal for his shabby treatment of his official wife: “Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman and because I hate her Husband.... [If] I must give up the princess I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved tolerably by her at first.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Summer: After the death of her mother Abba and the marriage of her favorite sister Mary Francis, her father David Convers Francis decided that Lydia Maria (Lydia Maria Child) would be better off in Mary’s new home in Norridgewock, Maine. She was removed from the meandering tidal Mystic River to Norridgewock on the Kennebec River, just downstream from the Bonebasee Rips and the ancient site of the Abenaki village of the name Norridgewock, still occupied, which she would visit.5

Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in exile from England, purchased the Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como.

The Reverend Timothy Flint embarked upon a number of missionary travels, first to Kingston and Raymond, New Hampshire, then perhaps into western Massachusetts and to Essex County in upstate New , on behalf of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1816

Early in the year: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in exile from England, took her new major domo Bartolomeo Pergami or Bergami on a cruise around the Mediterranean. Since they ate together openly and since 32-year-old Pergami was as tall, dark, and handsome as sin, people of course presumed them to have become lovers. They visited Napoléon’s former palace on the Isle of Elba, Sicily, , , Milos, Athens, Corinth, Constantinople, and Nazareth. Caroline entered riding on a donkey, which of course was seen as an unfortunate reference to the Christian Scripture.

May 2, Thursday: At Carlton House, Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, daughter of Prince Regent George of Great Britain and Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, heir presumptive to the throne of Great Britain, got married with Prince Leopold George Christian Frederick of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, afterwards King of the Belgians. They would reside at Claremont, a wedding gift from the nation (their wedded bliss would be temporary).

Persuaded by Clare Clairmont that George Gordon, would be delighted to have their company, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, and Claire went toward to leave England to visit Byron in Geneva (they would arrive in mid-May and would remain near him till August 29th).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 2 of 5 M Meeting rather small - A short testimony from C R. — My Mother, Cousins Patty & Mary Ann Gardiner & Josiah Lawton & Wife set the Afternoon with us. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

5. At some point during Lydia Maria Child’s adolescent years in Maine, 1815-1821, she would allege much later in her LETTERS FROM NEW YORK, she had visited one of the Penobscot villages on the banks of the Kennebec River and had there met the sachem of the Penobscot, “Captain Neptune,” with small eyes, “smoking a pipe and wearing a crushed hat and a dirty blanket.” Accompanying the sachem, she would say, was his nephew Etalexis, who was of marriageable age and thus was attired in “a broad band of shining brass around his hat, a circle of silver on his breast, tied with scarlet ribbons, and a long belt of curiously-wrought wampum hanging to his feet.” Miss Francis alleged that she had reached down and grabbed this young man’s wampum, and had demanded to know why the sachem himself was not so attired. “Me no want to catch ’em squaw,” she alleged the old man replied. (Miss Francis had made no mention, however, of such an incident, in her correspondence of the period, and one would have fancied that, had such an incident occurred, it would have been eagerly recounted to any number of her friends. My sense of it is that what we have here is not an account of a meeting, but a rare and privileged glimpse into this young lady’s sexual fantasy life. It wasn’t this young red man’s wampum that she took in her hand, and rather than it being this old red man who was not looking to catch ’em, it was the young woman who was hoping that this young red man was looking to catch ’em.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1817

January 2, Thursday: The initial issue of the Vienna Allgemeine Musik Zeitung.

George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote amusingly to John Murray describing the sexual morals of the Mediterranean clime — if a woman limits herself to her husband plus one lover, she is considered virtuous; if she takes two, three, or more lovers, she might be considered a little wild; only when she becomes indiscriminately profuse, or forms “a low connexion, such as the Princess of Wales with her courier,” will she be considered to have overstepping the modesty of marriage.

Maintaining the Princess-of-Wales Tradition

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 2 of 1 M / Meeting pretty well attended, -a short offering - leanness was my companion. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales had been living beyond her £35,000- per-annum allowance from the British government and needed to sell the Villa d’Este on Lake Como. When the household relocated to less grand digs, the Villa Caprile near Pesaro, for some reason her handsome major domo Bartolomeo Pergami or Bergami’s wife did not accompany them. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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November 5, Wednesday: Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, heir presumptive to the throne of Great Britain, after 50 hours of labor gave birth to a stillborn male infant.

The British forced Daulat Rao Sindhia to sign a Treaty of Gwalior requiring him to aid the British against the Pindaris.

The Peshwa destroyed the British residency at Poona, which would result in the 3d Maratha War.

November 6, Thursday: Milosh Obrenovic became Prince of Serbia, replacing George Petrovic who had died on July 25th.

Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, the only legitimate child of Prince Regent George who had been destined since her birth to become eventually the Queen of Great Britain, instead died at the age of 21 at Claremont House, Esher, in Surrey, of post-partum hemorrhage and shock early in the morning, after having been delivered the previous day of a stillborn male infant. This funeral would of course be promoted as a national tragedy or media event — even the undertakers would get drunk. The mother Caroline was not duly informed of her daughter’s death, nor invited to the funeral. When she would find out about it courtesy of a traveler, she would faint. The proto-queen’s body would be interred in St. George’s Chapel of Windsor with her stillborn male infant at her feet. Percy Bysshe Shelley immediately began “Address to the People on the Death of the Princess Charlotte” somewhat in the manner in which Elton John would in this century celebrate the untimely death of the Princess in a Paris auto accident, adding of course a few rough touches in the mode of Diana’s brother’s funeral declarations about the social context of her demise: We cannot truly grieve for every one who dies beyond the circle of those especially dear to us; yet in the extinction of the objects of public love and admiration, and gratitude, there is something, if we enjoy a liberal mind, which has departed from within that circle.... But this appeal to the feelings of men should not be made lightly, or in a any manner that tends to waste, on inadequate objects, those fertilizing streams of sympathy, which a public mourning should be the occasion of pouring forth. This solemnity should be used only to express a wide and intelligible calamity, and one which is felt to be such by those who feel for their country and for mankind; its character ought to be universal, not particular. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Shelley would compare and contrast this express “private grief” to the lack of affect being displayed by the public and by the press in regard to the hangings, drawings, and quarterings being carried out at virtually the same time of three laborers, Jeremiah Brandreth, Isaac Ludlam, and William Turner, who had been detected in Luddite activities (that is, had been incited to lead the Pentrich Rising): Let us follow the corpse of British Liberty slowly and reverently to its tomb: and if some glorious Phantom should appear, and make its throne of broken swords and sceptres and royal crowns trampled in the dust, let us say that the Spirit of Liberty has arisen from its grave and left all that was dross and mortal there, and kneel down and worship it as our Queen. The Princess Charlotte’s obstetrician, Sir Richard Croft, who had correctly diagnosed a transverse lie of the baby during labour but had somehow failed to resort to forceps as would have been the standard procedure during that era, would three months later commit suicide. For the details as to Princess Charlotte Augusta in the early 19th Century, refer to Stephen C. Behrendt’s ROYAL MOURNING AND REGENCY CULTURE: ELEGIES AND MEMORIALS OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE, Macmillan / St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Public exercises in mourning were great and widespread, a huge number of poems, sermons, and other literary and quasi-literary texts appeared almost immediately, commemorative ceramic objects, textiles, coins, sculptures, and music followed. That princess had been widely regarded as an attractive domestic alternative to the Prince Regent, her widely unpopular father, as well as to his largely disgraced estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick, and this untimely death was therefore a most grievous blow to those who had invested this princess with the symbolic significance of “England’s Hope.” Much as Elton John has reinvented Diana as “England’s Rose,” Charlotte would be apostrophized in that period as “Albion’s Rose.” Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld’s COLLECTED WORKS published in 1825 would have a poem for Princess Charlotte which is very much in the mode of sensibility and emphasizes the universal mourning the death occasioned except in the case of the mad George III who no longer has the capacity for grief. Charlotte’s funeral resembled Diana’s laying in state in .

The parallels are rich because Charlotte was fashioned in the public mind as a sort of precursor to the “domestic virtues” we later associate with the Victorian era — and indeed, it was her death, at the stillbirth of her only child, that would ensure that, 20 years later, a princess named Victoria would ascend the throne of England. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. —— Yes, Britain mourns, as with electric touch, For youth, for love, for happiness destroyed, Her universal population melts In grief spontaneous, and hard hearts are moved, And rough unpolished natures learn to feel For those they envied, leveled in the dust By Fate’s impartial stroke ; and pulpits sound With vanity and woe to earthly goods, And urge and dry the tear. — Yet one there is Who midst this general burst of grief remains In strange tranquillity ; whom not the stir And long-drawn murmurs of the gathering crowd, That by his very windows trail the pomp Of hearse, and blazoned arms, and long array Of sad funereal rites, nor the loud groans And deep-felt anguish of a husband’s heart, Can move to mingle with this flood one tear : In careless apathy, perhaps in mirth, He wears the day. Yet is he near in blood, The very stem on which this blossom grew, And at his knees she fondled in the charm And grace spontaneous which along belongs To untaught infancy : — Yet O forbear ! Nor deem him hard of heart ; for awful, struck By Heaven’s severest visitation, sad, Like a scathed oak amidst the forest trees, Lonely he stands ; — leaves bud, and shoot, and fall ; He holds no sympathy with living nature Or time’s incessant change. Then in this hour, While pensive thought is busy with the woes And restless change of poor humanity, Think then, O think of him, and breathe one prayer, Form the full tide of sorrow spare one tear, For him who does not weep !

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 6th of 11 M / Silent Meeting. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1819

End of the year: Divorce could not be obtained by mutual consent in England — one or the other of the spouses must be found to have been guilty of the transgression of adultery. Prince Regent George of Great Britain had therefore asked Vice-Chancellor John Leach to chair a task force, the “ Commission,” to gather adequate evidence of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales’s adultery. Caroline’s former servants Theodore Majocchi and Louise Demont, etc. had been interrogated. Lord Brougham, who was still acting as Caroline’s agent, had sent his brother James to Caroline’s villa to find out whether there was anything this Milan Commission might be able to use against her, and the brother wrote that the situation was hopeless: they were “to all appearances man and wife, never was anything so obvious.” Lady Caroline, worried at finding herself cut off without a , told him that given an adequate financial settlement she could hold still for a divorce, but that she could never admit adultery. Lord Broughams advised that divorce was not in the cards, that only possibility was a more formal separation. There was discussion of a deal whereby Caroline would acquire a consolation title such as “.” As the negotiations continued, Lady Caroline travelled to France, producing speculation that she was on her way to England. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1820

January 23, Sunday: Edward Augustus Hanover, and Strathern, 4th son of King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and father of the princess who would become Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, died of pneumonia in Woodbrook Cottage at Sidmouth in Devon, England. The princess would be raised by her mother.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 23rd of 1 M / Our Morning was pretty well attended by male & female considering that the ground is coverd with Snow Father Rodman & Hannah Dennis were engaged in lively testimonys. —Silent in the Afternoon, but I believe true Worship was performed. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In France, the Princess of Wales, estranged wife of Prince Regent George, was making plans to return to Italy when King George III of England died and her husband was acknowledged as King George IV of England. Here the dude is, as he was depicted in this year in a savage woodcut by :

She would therefore demand to be recognized as Queen of England! George IV would try to dissolve the marriage, insisting that a Bill of Pains and Penalties be introduced in the . The bill accused her of adultery and although adultery would not have denied him his title, it would have denied her the title. Henry Peter Brougham, her legal adviser, would successfully defend her against the government charge — it must HDT WHAT? INDEX

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have all been some sort of misunderstanding.

After three months the bill would be abandoned for lack of support. An offer would be made to increase her annuity to £50,000 on the same terms as before, that she stay away. When George IV would be crowned on July 21, 1821, still refusing to recognize Caroline as his queen, he would ensure that she would be denied admittance to the ceremony as elsewhere described. (A few weeks later she would die of an intestinal HDT WHAT? INDEX

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obstruction, resolving the crisis.)

READ ABOUT THIS CASE

January 29, Saturday: In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 29th of 1st M / Attended the funeral of Mary Williams, a considerable number of friends & others were there, but not as many as would have been had the weather been good — I served as a bearer. — Serious reflections, & my mind was lead to examine many subjects. — Mary Was a woman capable of great usefulness, “fitted to shine.” & was useful in many respects. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Upon the 8:32PM demise of the demented King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover at , George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, who had been serving as Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland since 1811 due to his father the king’s incapacitation, became George IV, King of Hanover and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ever the fancy dresser (if you can imagine this, he had attended his first House of Lords debate in 1783 attired in a black velvet suit embroidered with gold and pink spangle, with a pink satin lining, accessorized by high- heel pink footwear), his coronation crown was to sport 12,314 diamonds. The new king, obese, was possibly addicted to laudanum. He would become seriously ill and would reign only a decade before his own demise. His coronation would need to be postponed on account of his official wife Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, a squat lady who was refusing to bathe or to change her underwear, who would manage despite discouragements to make her way to London — and would be greeting enthusiastic crowds.

George III 1760 1820

Regency 1811 1820

George IV 1820 1830

William IV 1830 1837

Victoria 1837 1901 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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February 12, Saturday: The weekly liturgy of the included Anglican prayers for the royal family and Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Queen Consort wanted her name on the list. At her husband King George IV’s request, the British cabinet acted to remove the name of Queen Caroline. Meanwhile, men were going around in London blowing horns, announcing the imminence of her arrival.

John Tyler wrote from Washington DC, where he was at the moment merely serving in the federal House of Representatives, to William Seldon in regard to the iniquity of the Missouri Compromise: “Our property in our slaves is as full and complete as that in our plantation utensils and with equal semblance of propriety might it be contended that we should not carry with us into the western forests an axe or an hoe.” (The future President of the United States of America, be it noted, a well-educated young white gentleman, was so utterly appreciative of the niceties that since the word “hoe” began with an “h,” like the word “historical” and the word “herbal,” by the rules of proper grammar it should be awarded the indefinite article “an” rather than the indefinite article “a”: “an historical account,” “an herbal garden,” therefore “an hoe.”)

April 30, Sunday: King George IV, noting that the national mourning that had gone on during part of 1818 and all of 1819 after the deaths of the Duke of Kent and King George III had been having an adverse effect on the clothing trade, had decreed that it would conclude with this day. Party hardy!

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 30th of 4 M / In our forenoon meeting Jonathon Dennis & Hannah Dennis & Daniel Buffum were engaged in public testimony & it was a season of favor for which I desire to be thankful. - In the Afternoon we were silent. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June 5, Monday: When Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales landed in Dover from Calais on a public ship, she was greeted by leading men of the city and a large, cheering crowd. The press of the crowd was so great that the Queen needed to find a temporary refuge within the York Hotel. The horses of her coach were unharnessed so that the people could themselves draw her triumphantly through the city. At Canterbury she was greeted with 100 men carrying flambeaux. Again her horses were unharnessed and the populace drew her coach through the city!

July: As Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, estranged wife of King George III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover, arrived in London from Italy to claim her rights as queen, she found her husband petulantly denying her the use of her plate. She was provided with a new set by popular subscription, donations not to exceed 1s. Anyone who managed to address the Queen was given a commemorative medallion manufactured by William Parr of London and valued at 1s. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July 5, Wednesday: John Thoreau, Jr.’s 6th birthday.

Leaders of disaffected Neapolitans demanded of the king that he grant a constitution.

A bill was introduced in the British House of Lords, accusing Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales of adultery, to strip her of the title of Queen and possibly to end the marriage between her and King George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover. 4th day 5th of 7 M / Uncle & Aunt Stanton Spent the Day with us, also my Mother, Sally & Isaac took tea — This evening called to see my old friend Mary Tillinghast found her very weak & low, apparently drawing to a conclusion. She was glad to see me, tho’ partially deranged It also affected my mind to find she was a little unsettled with respect to her wellfare hereafter, observing that she had been loong seeking & not finding what her soul desired, - after conversing some time & finding that the fever lay much in her head, we droped into Silence, in which I felt the necessity of having Salt[?] in myself a solemnity covered my mind & I believe spread over us, after thus sitting a few moments I observed to her that I had no doubt that her innocent life & sincerity of motive would be acceptable & that in true Stillness was to be found, that which Surpassed words, recommended to her to labor after it & not distrust the kind hand which had from season to season been with her thro’ life, & if she labord in this way I had no doubt She would find that consolation which the World can neither give nor take away - after this the she said she would labor not to distrust but be quiet & I left her more to Satisfaction than I found her HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 17, Thursday: The trial to prove the infidelities of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, so that King George IV might divorce her, began with her riding in triumph to the House of Lords in a state carriage through cheering throngs, graciously waving to all and sundry. Among the 258 peers assembled there were two (at least) with whom she had had intimate relations. The issue of her name being in the weekly liturgy of the Anglican Church was a major complication. The husband could not bring proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court because he did not have the required “clean hands.” He attempted to secure a Bill of Pains and Penalties but the queen was virtually acquitted by the House of Lords because the bill passed only by a slender majority. As far as many of the peers were concerned, the issue was not who was dirty but who was dirtiest:

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 17 of 8 M / At Meeting J Dennis was concerned in a short testimony — Our fr D Buffum remains confined with a sore leg which does not get much better, tho’ it is supposed it is doing as well as can be expected RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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August 19, Saturday: Evidence began to be heard in the House of Lords in the matter of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales’s alleged infidelities, so that King George IV might divorce her. It would continue for several months.

Die Zauberharfe D.644, a melodrama by Franz Schubert to words of von Hofmann, was performed for the initial time, in the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna. The overture was from the composer’s music for Rosamunde.

September 7, Thursday: During a Lake Erie storm two lake vessels were forced to tie up at the new pier being built by Samuel Wilkeson at Buffalo Creek, New York (later the Buffalo River). The pier would hold.

The Attorney-General of England rested His Majesty’s case against Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales in the House of Lords. She responded by sailing down the Thames in her state barge. An estimated 200,000 people viewed the procession.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 7th of 9th M / Father Rodman delivered a short testimony at Meeting. — To me it was a season of great poverty. I know not when I have passed a meeting so destitute of good Joseph Sansom of Philadelphia was at Meeting he is a great traveller & published several works. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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When the wooden Concord Town School had burned down the previous December 31st, the Corinthian Lodge of local Freemasons had volunteered to pay $400 toward the cost of replacing it, on condition that a private staircase would be provided to an upper floor that would be reserved for their activities. The new building, of brick, dedicated on this day by the Reverend Ezra Ripley, sported a bell cupola (two other, outlying, new schoolhouses were also being dedicated on this day). I wish you to realize that it is your indispensable duty to govern your children.... I do not say you must be severe. There will be no need of severity, if you begin discipline seasonably and pursue it with wisdom and prudence. But they must be made to obey you. If you do not know how to govern your children, and to command their fear and love, it is high time you should learn. And I would there were schools for this purpose. I believe they would be highly beneficial.

The ground floor of this building would house the town school preparing local students for college until, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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in 1851, it would be moved across the square into the new Town Hall. The classroom was constructed like an amphitheater. The ceiling was ten feet high and, in the center, running from the door to the master’s desk at the opposite end, was an aisle. On either side the floor rose toward the wall on an inclined plane, on which were four rows of benches, ten seats to a row, so that the master was surrounded by students on three sides. The northwest half was the girls’ side and the boys sat on the southeast, forty students on each side. The scholars used wooden desks of the classic schoolroom type — lidded, bolted to the floor, and attached to the seat in front. The master’s desk stood on a platform sixteen inches high, facing the students. Near this, on the floor, was an old heating stove. The room was lit with oil lamps.

October 3, Tuesday: Min Ning succeeded Jiaqing as Emperor of China.

The defense of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales opened before the House of Lords.

November 2, Thursday: The final phase of the “trial” of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales began in the House of Lords.

Founding of a Mercantile-Library at 49 Fulton Street in New-York.6

6. The Mercantile Library in Boston had at this point been open for some months, and this one would not actually open its doors until February 12th of the following year. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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November 10, Friday: After a “trial” requiring more than two months, a vote was taken upon the 3d reading of the bill against Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales in the House of Lords. The bill was approved 108-99, a margin so small that the government would not dare to introduce it in the House of Commons. The court lawyers needed to abandon the petition of King George IV to prevent his wife from becoming queen consort of England by divorcing her — against her fitness her husband the monarch- designate had sought to submit mere court gossip, chatter that under the law amounted only to the flimsiest of hearsay evidences and turned out to be in its entirety inadmissible. British street crowds greeted the news with cheers and there would follow three days of nationwide spontaneous celebration.7

The Reverend Barnard Hanbury and George Waddington arrived at Wady Halfa, above the 2d cataract of the Nile River, and were provided by the Turkish army with five dromedary camels, one too few for their party of six. They were advised, however, that it would be an easy and pleasant 8-day hike to Dóngola. HENRY WOULD READ ABOUT IT

November 11, Saturday: The Reverend Barnard Hanbury and George Waddington set off from Wady Halfa in the direction of Dóngola, in search for the ruins of Meroe. In their party were a young Irishman named James Curtin, a man from Malta named Giovanni Fiamingo, his teenage cousin Giuseppe Fiamingo, and a black slave. HENRY WOULD READ ABOUT IT

Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales was acquitted. The Manchester Observer would comment that “The Queen owes her deliverance ... solely to the INTERPOSITION OF THE PEOPLE. She remains Queen of England by the choice of the people ... the people have overawed the parliament, and have preserved the rights of the Queen inviolate by the menace of their vengeance.” The people celebrated that night, smashing windows and firing pistols into the air, and Cobbett estimated that across the nation some 50,000 guns must have been discharged in celebration. Churches were invaded and clergy insulted. The police and military found it necessary to read the Riot act in more than a dozen towns.

7. She would fall ill after being barred from her husband’s coronation at Westminster Abbey and would die on August 7, 1821, so, you might say, the royal’s little problem eventually solved itself. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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November 18, Saturday: Land was sighted south of the South Shetlands, by the sailors of the sloop Hero under 21-year-old Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut. (This sloop was part of a sealing expedition organized by Captain Benjamin Pendleton. After a period this land would be recognized as the Antarctic Peninsula.) THE FROZEN SOUTH

Liverpool was unable to send the bill against Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales on to the Commons because “it would have been perilous to persevere in passing it in the present state of public feelings.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 18th of 11th M / Our venerable friends David Buffum & Wife spent the Afternoon & took tea with us with Aunt A Carpenter & Mary Chase. — I intended to have gone to Connanicut this Afternoon So as to have been at meeting there tomorrow, but as our above said frds DB & wife never made us but one Afternoon visit before & considering it may be that they will never together make us another I felt most easy to omit crossing the ferrys this Afternoon & run the risk of a Passage tomorrow morning RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Late in November: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales made a triumphal Thanksgiving progression to St. Paul’s Cathedral. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1821

January 2, Tuesday: Lieutenant George Back arrived at the trading posts on Lake Athabasca. When the new supplies arrived, he would take them to Fort Enterprise.

George Gordon, Lord Byron had been married to Penelope for six years but only the first year had been happy: EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY. To Penelope. This day, of all our days, has done The worst for me and you :— ’Tis just six years since we were one, And five since we were two.

Early in the month there would occur a spate of marches in honor of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales becoming the Queen Consort of the empire. King George IV’s proclamation as king would be met, in a number of cities, with shouts of “Queen, Queen, Long Live the Queen.” The monarch would be booed even at Ascot. There would be street cries of “No Queen, No King.” London walls would be chalked with the slogan “The Queen Forever, the King in the River.”

January 26, Friday: The Congress of Laibach (Ljubljana) opened. Present were Tsar Alyeksandr of Russia and Emperor Franz of Austria as well as special representatives of the Kings of France and Prussia. Great Britain was represented only by its ambassador to Vienna, who would of course be able to act merely as an observer. Also present were King Ferdinando of Naples and the Duke of Modena. Other Italian sovereigns had also sent representatives. The subject was the peace of Europe — in particular, unrest in Italy.

This date marked the 1st recorded instance of a “Schubertiad” — 14 friends gathered in the Vienna rooms of Franz von Schober drank and made merry until 3AM.

New Yorkers walked from Paumanok Long Island to Staten Island, on the ice.

During the following 31 days the cause of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales would be experiencing a series of defeats in the House of Commons, winding up with the Whigs abandoning her cause. Most gracious Queen we thee implore To go away and sin no more, Or, if that effort be too great, To go away at any rate.

March 19, Monday: Richard Francis Burton was born in Torquay, Devonshire, England.

The Champion commented that not since 1688, when the trial of the seven bishops produced a revolution, had the nation of England been so riveted by what happened in the courts of law. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 1, Friday: Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales was on her way north from Italy, and had reached St. Omer near Calais. She rejected the British government’s offer of £50,000. Parting from Bartolomeo Pergami or Bergami, she embarked to cross the channel.

June 5, Tuesday: Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales arrived at Dover, and rioting broke out in support of her.

June 6, Wednesday: King George IV submitted to Parliament the evidence against Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in two green bags.

June 15, Friday: The guard in the King’s Mews mutinied in support of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day / My Mother, Cousin Molly Howland & Cousin Hannah Gardiner Spent the Afternoon with us - we also had a call from Micajah Collins & wife who remain in Town, expecting to be here on first day. — Stephen Grellett Attends a meeting at Warren this Afternoon & expects to return to Portsmouth & attend meeting there next first Day RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 27, Wednesday: The House of Lords opened the two green bags of evidence submitted by King George IV against Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales. The evidence would be examined in secret by 15 peers. The green bags would immediately become a symbol of all that was wrong with the king’s approach to the situation — he had had the Hanoverian ambassador to Rome hire informants who had spied on the queen’s most intimate daily life, and had had burglars purloin papers out of her locked private cabinet.

Our national birthday, the 4th of July: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, or Hathorne’s, 17th birthday.

Since President James Monroe was ill, the Executive Mansion was closed to the public. At a ceremony held at the Capitol, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams read aloud from an original copy of the Declaration of Independence. In Philadelphia, 90-year-old Timothy Matlack, the man who “wrote the first commission” for General George Washington, was chosen to be the one to read aloud that Declaration. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira became Secretary of State (prime minister) of Portugal.

News of the demise of Napoléon reached London. After the report of the panel of 15 peers, the government introduced a bill in the House of Lords, “Pains and Penalties 1820,” that would deprive Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales of the title of Queen Consort and dissolve her marriage with King George IV on account of her alleged adultery. Caroline would joke, with friends, that indeed she had once committed adultery, with the husband of a Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 4th of 7 M / This has as usual been a day of noise in Town, but with all I have not learned any accident has taken place. — We have had our Cousins John Mary & Edwin Casey with us for a day or two from Greenwich RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 19, Thursday: The delayed coronation banquet for King George IV, “George the Fourth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith,” was finally staged in Westminster Hall. Although the coronation of King George III had cost only about £10,000, this one would sum up to about £243,000. His squat official wife, Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, had returned to England for the occasion but was not welcome at his coronation. She would be turned away at 6AM dressed to the nines at the doors to the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey, then at the doors to the West Cloister, and then at the main entrance to Westminster Hall itself. The king had hired a bunch of bodybuilders and attired them in page costumes, and this group under the command of the champion pugilist Gentleman Jackson was charged to stand sturdily in blockage of her path. Bayonets were held under her chin and the Deputy Lord Chamberlain had the doors closed in her face. She then proceeded to a door near Poet’s Corner, where she was persuaded to desist and rode away in her carriage to the jeers of onlookers: “Back to Pergami!” She went home and after a dinner party which she spoiled by copious weeping, took a dose of milk of magnesia and some drops of laudanum and went off to bed. The monarch would refuse to recognize her as his Queen and would oblige the British ambassadors to ensure that monarchs in foreign courts did the same. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

By royal command Caroline’s name would be omitted from the Book of Common Prayer, the liturgy of the Church of England.

When the monarch would seek a divorce, however, he would be warned that any divorce proceedings might well involve the publication of sordid details relating not only to the Queen’s extensive series of adulteries, but also to the King’s. The monarch would spend most of his later reign in seclusion at Windsor Castle. Numerous statues of him would be erected during his reign (a bronze on horseback by Sir Francis Chantrey in , for instance, and another outside the Royal Pavilion in Brighton), and such statues would hold still and remain silent and represent considerable improvements on the presence of the actual royal personage.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 19th of 7 M / Our Meeting was a silent comfortable time In the last (preparative) we had no buisness but what [was] usual. — This Afternoon rode to Portsmouth to Uncle Saml Thurstons — I was under appointment to visit Hannah Brown (late Lawton) for marrying out of the order of society - Jethro Mitchell & I went together & before we got thro’ it was too late HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

to come home so I lodged at Jethro’s & 6th day Morng walked home before breakfast. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 21, Saturday: Carl Maria von Weber’s deteriorating health prompts him to make a last will and testament in Dresden.

While George was being been crowned George the Fourth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith on the 19th, his estranged official spouse Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales had attempted repeatedly to gain admission to Westminster Abbey and had been turned away amidst some name-calling by onlookers. On this night she attended a pageant of the coronation at Drury Lane Theater and, returning home, became very ill with some kind of digestive condition.

August 7, Tuesday: At 10:25PM Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, inconvenient wife of King George IV of England who had been ailing ever since being barred in the previous November from his coronation in Westminster Abbey, finally died at Brandenburg House of an intestinal obstruction which may have been cancer. She had reached the age of 53. Right up to the end she had been being spied upon and reported upon by agents of the king. The king was aboard his yacht when he received the news, and retired to his cabin for the remainder of the day. The people, who would not be required by the government to officially mourn, again rallied to her. “she’s dead, great Caroline is dead.... The Rose of England is no more.” Crowds assembled to witness her funeral procession and insist upon a proper route for it, so the English monarch had his Life Guards fire into the crowds — despite two deaths the public refused to disperse.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 7 of 8 M / Rode to Portsmouth this Afternoon with Zacheus Chase, lodged at Uncle Stantons - 4th day morning Walked to Meeting, went across the Land & stoped at Richd Sissons & on my way our to the rode passed by the old Sisson House which I believe is the only one on the Island that has leaden windows Sashes & dimond glass - was caught in a shower of Rain & stoped at ? Sissons & saw his mother aged 86 Years, a sociable, pleasant & intelligent old woman. — At Meeting which was a solid[?] time, Ruth Meely engaged in testimony, to the consolation of many minds present. — Dined at Uncle Thurstons & in the Afternoon had an opportunity with Adam Anthony in consequence of his request to be admitted to membership — Took tea with Adam & in the eveng he brought me home in his Chaise RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

August 16, Thursday: Arthur Cayley, mathematician, died.

The Paris Opera moved into new quarters in the Rue Le Peletier (its old theater in the Rue de Richelieu had been demolished after the Duc de Berry had been stabbed while leaving).

The casket of Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was placed on board a ship at Harwich. During the night, as her coffin had lain awaiting the morning tide at Harwich, a plaque reading “CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, INJURED QUEEN OF ENGLAND” had been ripped away.

August 24, Friday: The casket of Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel arrived at Brunswick.

August 25, Saturday: The body of Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was interred in .

The Battle of Vassilika between Greek insurgents and the Ottoman Empire, near Thermopylae. The insurgents managed to destroy an Ottoman relief army on its way to the forces of Omar Vrioni in Attica, capturing supplies and baggage. 800 Turks were killed and 220 captured. Greek prizes included 18 flags, 2 cannons, and 800 horses. Turks retreated to Lamia to the north of Thermopylae. This victory prevented the Ottoman army in Attica and Evia from entering the Peloponnese and delivering Ottoman garrisons besieged by the Greeks. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1825

King George IV of England, officially styled as “George the Fourth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith,” was so afflicted with spasms of breathlessness that left him half-asphyxiated, that he often was spending all day in bed. When he rose, he attired himself in a corset with a waist of 50 inches. He was suffering from gout, arteriosclerosis, cataracts, and possible porphyria. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1827

January 5, Friday: An die untergehende Sonne, a song by Franz Schubert to words of Kosegarten, was published by Diabelli, Vienna as his op.44.

Death of Prince Frederick, and Albany, a 2d son of King George III who had been after King George IV next in line to inherit the British throne. The new next-in-line would be another brother, a 3d son of King George III: Prince William, , who eventually would in fact reign as William IV.

King George IV established the measure for an (imperial) of land. One acre was to be equal to 43,560 square feet, or 1/640 of a square . Although this would be the standard unit of measurement in the United Kingdom, the hectare (approximately 2.5 ) would of course continue to be used throughout Europe.

During a 2d imprisonment for debt, Benjamin Robert Haydon witnessed a prison incident that gave him an idea for a painting, entitled “Mock Election” (King George IV would award him £525 for this, after he had already made £321 merely by exhibiting it). Before me were three men marching in solemn procession, the one in the centre a tall young, reckless, bushy-headed, light- hearted Irishman, with a rusty cocked-hat under his arm, a bunch of flowers in his bosom, his curtain-rings round his neck for a gold chain, a mopstick for a white wand, tipped with an empty strawberry-pottle, bows of ribbons on his shoulders, and a great hole in his elbow; on his right was another person in burlesque solemnity, with a sash and real white wand; two others, fantastically dressed, came immediately behind, and the whole followed by characters of all descriptions, some with flags, some with staffs, and all in perfect merriment and mock gravity, adapted to some masquerade. I asked what it meant, and was told it was a procession of burgesses, headed by the Lord High Sheriff and Lord Mayor of the King’s Bench Prison, going in state to open the poll, in order to elect two members to protect their rights in the House of Commons. I returned to my room, and laughed and wept by turns! Here were a set of creatures who must have been in want and in sorrow, struggling (with a spiked wall before their eyes) to bury remembrance in the humour of a farce. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1830

June 26, Saturday: As King George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of Hanover lay dying at the age of 67 of a burst blood vessel in his abdomen at about 3:30AM in Windsor Castle, he cried out “Good God, what is this?” Clasping the hand of his page, he then said “My boy, this is death.” Since he died childless, the throne of England was to devolve upon a 64-year-old childless brother.8 The Times would comment: There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow- creatures than this deceased king. What eye has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of unmercenary sorrow? ... If he ever had a friend –a devoted friend in any rank of life– we protest that the name of him or her never reached us.

Famous Last Words:

“What school is more profitably instructive than the death-bed of the righteous, impressing the understanding with a convincing evidence, that they have not followed cunningly devised fables, but solid substantial truth.” — A COLLECTION OF MEMORIALS CONCERNING DIVERS DECEASED MINISTERS, Philadelphia, 1787 “The death bed scenes & observations even of the best & wisest afford but a sorry picture of our humanity. Some men endeavor to live a constrained life — to subject their whole lives to their will as he who said he might give a sign if he were conscious after his head was cut off — but he gave no sign Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.” —Thoreau’s JOURNAL, March 12, 1853

1821 John Keats dying of TB in Rome “Severn … I am dying … I shall die easy … don’t be frightened … be firm and thank God it has come.”

8. He would reign as King William IV until 1837. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1825 Phebe Walker Bliss died in Concord “Don’t call Dr. Ripley his boots squeak so, Emerson Ripley Mr. Emerson used to step so softly, his boots never squeaked.”

1826 Thomas Jefferson died at 12:50PM “Is it the 4th? —Ah.”

1826 John Adams died at 5: 30PM — Jefferson actually “Thomas Jefferson still surv...” had, in Virginia, predeceased him

1830 King George IV early one morning in Windsor Castle “Good God, what is this? — My boy, this is death.”

1832 Sam Sharpe being hanged after an unsuccessful “I would rather die on yonder gallows slave revolt on the island of Jamaica than live in slavery.” ... other famous last words ...

July 15, Thursday: The body of George IV was interred with suitable solemnity in St George’s Chapel at Windsor.

Contractors’ proposals for the Mohawk and Hudson Rail-Road in New York were received.

A treaty was signed in Keokuk which ceded 10,530,000 hectares belonging to the Sauk and Fox tribes of Wisconsin and Illinois to the United States. The Americans would be obliged to evacuate across the Mississippi into Iowa.

Hector Berlioz was chosen as one of the six finalists for the Prix de Rome for the 4th time. He vowed that whatever happened, this would be the last. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

1831

The Reverend George Croly’s LIFE AND TIMES OF HIS LATE MAJESTY GEORGE THE FOURTH: WITH ANECDOTES OF DISTINGUISHED PERSONS OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS appeared as Issue #15 of HARPER’S FAMILY LIBRARY, published by J. & J. Harper.9 He received an LLD degree at Trinity College, Dublin.

LIFE OF KING GEORGE IV

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

9. This volume would be in the personal library of Henry Thoreau. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: November 3, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

KING GEORGE IV KING GEORGE IV

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.