George IV of Great Britain
George IV was regent for nine years and king for ten, and is remembered for his debts, his mistresses and his buildings. Born in 1762, the eldest son of George III, he was clever, well read, a genuine judge of painting and architecture, and entirely without self-restraint. By twenty-one he was in debt on a scale that required parliamentary bailouts, and by twenty-three he had secretly married Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic widow, which was invalid under both the Royal Marriages Act and the Act of Settlement and would have cost him the throne had it been valid. He was married officially in 1795 to Caroline of Brunswick in exchange for the payment of his debts, was reportedly drunk at the ceremony, and separated from her within a year of their daughter's birth. His father's illness made him regent in 1811, and the Regency is the period's name in English cultural history — Nash's terraces around Regent's Park, the Brighton Pavilion in an Indian and Chinese idiom, the rebuilding of Buckingham House, the purchase of the pictures that founded the National Gallery, and the gift of his father's library to the nation. He became king in 1820 and immediately tried to divorce Caroline through a parliamentary bill, in proceedings that aired his own conduct in public and made her a popular heroine; the bill was abandoned, and she died weeks after being turned away from the coronation. He conceded Catholic emancipation in 1829 against his own convictions. He died in 1830, and The Times said no one had ever been less regretted. He was also fat, gouty and increasingly reclusive, receiving ministers in bed and inventing a version of Waterloo in which he had led a charge. Wellington, who had been there, agreed politely each time.
- Lived: 1762 CE – 1830 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: king, prince_regent
