A MEMOIR

OF

THE LIFE

OF

GEORGE THE FOURTH.

CHAPTER I.

The Brunswick Line.

THE origin of the Brunswick Family is lost in the fabulous ages of the north. The first occurrence of the name has been dimly traced by the German antiquaries to the invasion of the Roman empire under Attila, in the middle of the fifth century. Among the tribes which that almost universal chieftain poured down upon Italy, the Scyrri (Hirri or Heruli) are found, whose king, Eddico, was sent as one of Attila's ambassadors to the court of Theodosius. The native country of the Scyrri was, like that of the principal invaders, in the north of Europe; and they are supposed, on Pliny's authority, to have possessed the marshes of Swedish Pomerania, and some of the islands near the mouth of the Baltic.

On the sudden death of Attila and the dismemberment of his conquests, the Scyrri seized upon a large tract bordering on the Danube. But the possession was either too tempting or too carelessly held, to be relinquished without a struggle by the fierce chieftains, who, in returning from Italy, had seen the fertility of Pomerania. The Scyrri were involved in

a furious war, which seems to have spread from the Adriatic to the Euxine. The calamities of Rome were mercilessly revenged by the wounds inflicted in this mutual havoc of her conquerors; and in one of those battles, in which extermination or victory were the only alternatives, the tribe of the Pomeranian Scyrri were totally cut off, with Eddico, their king, at their head, and GUELPH, his son, or brother, whose name is then first heard in history.

But the fortunes of the Scyrri were destined to be rapidly revived by one of the most singular and fortunate conquerors of time remarkable for striking changes of fortune. A remnant of the tribe, unable or unwilling to follow their king in the Roman invasion, had, by remaining in Pomerania, escaped the general extinction. Odoacer, the son of the fallen king, put himself at their head, and marched from the Baltic to revenge the slaughter of his countrymen. Like many of the northern chieftains, he had been educated, probably as a hostage, in the Roman camps, and had been familiar with the habits of the accomplished but profligate court of the Western Empire. His address and valour raised him to the command of the German troops in the service of the throne. Some slight which he received from Orestes, his former general, but now the father of the emperor; or, more probably, his own lofty and daring ambition, stimulated him to the seizure of a diadem disgraced by the feebleness of its possessor. Sword in hand, he forced Augustulus to abdicate; and, under the name of the Patrician, Odoacer ascended the throne of the Cesars.

Power won by the sword is naturally lost by the sword; and Theodoric, the Goth, disputed the sovereignty. After a succession of battles, in which the courage and military skill of Odoacer earned the praise of history, artifice circumvented the soldier; he was assassinated at a banquet, within ten years of his triumph, his dynasty extinguished, and his

tribe, with his brother Guelph at their head, driven out once more to create a kingdom for themselves by their valour. But this expulsion was the true origin of that singular fortune by which the Guelphic blood has been the fount of sovereignty to the most renowned quarters of Europe.

Guelph (variously called Anulphus, Wulfoade, and Onulf,) saw, with a soldier's eye, the advantage which a position in the Tyrolese hills gave to the possessor, for the purposes of invasion or defence. Expelling the Roman colonists, he established his kingdom in the mountains, formed alliances with the neighbouring tribes, and, looking down upon Germany on one side, and upon the loveliness and magnificence of Italy on the other, calmly prepared his people for future supremacy.*

*

Without following the progress of this distinguished line through the conflicts of the dark ages, and the restless revolutions of power in the Italian sovereignties; we come to the authorized conclusion, that the house of Brunswick have held rank among the German princes for six hundred years.

From George the First the ascent is clear up to the first Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, who received his investiture from the Emperor Frederick the Second in the middle of the 13th century. Still, this investiture was less an increase of honours than a shade on the ancient splendour of a family, whose dominions had once numbered Bavaria and Saxony, then of the size of kingdoms, and whose influence was felt from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. But the direct male line of the Brunswick princes is Italian.

The marquises or sovereigns of Este, Liguria, and perhaps of Tuscany, were among its first branches. "In the eleventh century the primitive stem was divided into two. The elder migrated to the banks

* Halliday's Annals of the House of Hanover.

of the Danube and the Elbe; the younger more humbly adhered to the shores of the Adriatic. The dukes of Brunswick and the kings of Great Britain are the descendants of the first: the dukes of Ferrara and Modena are the offspring of the second."*

A singular compact in the sixteenth century added to the celebrity of the house of Brunswick Lunenburg. William, the reigning duke, fourth son of Ernest, who had obtained for himself a title more illustrious than that of thrones, the CONFESSOR, by his support of the great Protestant Confession of Augsburg; had left fifteen children, seven of whom were sons. The young princes, on the death of their father in 1593, resolved, for the purpose of keeping up their house in undiminished dignity, that but one of them should marry: the marriage to be decided by lot, and the elder brother to have the undivided inheritance and be succeeded by the next survivor. The lot was drawn by the sixth brother, George, who married Ann Eleanora, daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, by whom he had five children. The compact was solemnly kept by the brothers, and drew so much notice by its romantic fidelity, that the Sultan Achmet the First pronounced it "worth a man's while to take a journey through Europe to be an eye-witness of such wonderful brotherly affection and princely honour."

The accession of George the Third to the throne of these realms was welcomed by the whole British empire. The difficulties which had thwarted the popularity of his two immediate predecessors were past; the party of the exiled dynasty had been wasted away by time, or alienated by the proverbial selfishness and personal folly of the Stuarts; a war was just closed, in which all the recollections of England

Gibbon's Posthumous Works.

were of triumphs and territories won from the habitual disturber of Europe; commerce was rising from the clouds always thrown round it by war, but rising with a strength and splendour unseen before, shooting over the farthest regions of the world those beams which are at once light and life, brightening and developing regions scarcely known by name, and filling their bosom with the rich and vigorous fertility of European arts, comforts, and knowledge.

All the acts of the young king strengthened the national good-will. His speech from the throne was deservedly applauded as the dictate of a manly and generous heart; and this characteristic was made a wise topic of congratulation in the corresponding addresses of the people. "It is our peculiar happiness," said the London Address, "that your Majesty's heart is truly English; and that you have discovered in your earliest years the warmest affection to the laws and constitution of these kingdoms."

An expression in the king's address to the privy council was seized with peculiar avidity as a proof alike of his head and heart. "I depend," said he, on the support of every honest man,' -a sentiment which united republican simplicity with kingly honour. He prohibited the court flattery then customary in the pulpit to the sovereign, reprimanding Wilson, one of his chaplains, in the expressive words,

"That he came to church to hear the praises of God, and not his own." The independence of the judges was among his first objects; and on the dissolution of parliament he consummated the national homage, by forbidding all ministerial interference in the elections, and magnanimously declaring that "He would be tried by his country."

The royal marriage now became a consideration of public importance. A bride was sought among the immediate connexions of the Royal Family, and the Princess Dowager proposed Sophia Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. B