The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick

to the reception he would meet in this country, he delayed visiting his new dominions until the month of October. In April, 1714, there was so little disposition in

ickleness." To-day it is the English who charge the French with fickleness. Thackeray says of George I. that "he showed an uncommon prudence and coolness of behavior when he came into his kingdom, exhibiting no elation; reasonably doubtful whether he should not be turned out some day; looking upon himself only as a lodger, and making the most of his brief tenure of St. James's and Hampton Court, plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his German followers; but what could be expected of a sovereign who at home could sell his subjects at so many ducats per head, and make no scruple in so disposing of them?" At the accession of George I

escribed by Thackeray as a "cold, selfish libertine," had Konigsmark murdered in the palace of Heranhausen; confined his wife, at twenty-eight years of age, in a dungeon, where she remained until she was sixty; and when George Augustus, Electoral Prince of Hanover, tried to get access to his mother, George Lewis, then Elector of Hanover, arrested Prince George also, and it is said, would have put him to death if the Emperor of Germany had not protected him as a Prince of the German Empire. During the reign of George II., Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom his father deno

ow took place, and the Prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of Newcastle's face, called him a rogue, and provoked his august father. He and his wife were turned out of St. James's, and their princely children taken from them, by order of the Royal head of the family. Father and mother

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es that out of the Civil List ￡100,-000 should be allotted as a separate revenue for the Prince of Wales. This motion was overruled by the Ministerial party, and its rejection offended the Prince as much as its proposal had the King.... In fact it is remarkable.... that since that family has reigned, the heir

f the Crown. Though most of the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were appointed deans and bishops. In every County, opulent and well-descended Tory squires complained that their names were left out of

Tories, but some such work is needful while so many persons labor under th

tess of Darlington; her title is extinct, and I can write nothing of any good or useful act to revive her memory. Lord Chesterfield says of George I.: "No woman came amiss to him, if she were only very willing and very fat." John Heneage Jesse, in his "Memoirs of the Court of England"-speaking of the Duchess of Kendal, the Countess Platen (the co-partner in the murder of Konigsmark), afterwards Countess of Darlington, and many others less known to infamy-says that George I. "had the folly and wickedness to encumber himself with a seraglio of hideous German prostitutes." The Duchess of Kendal was for many years the chief mistress of George, and being tall and lean was caricatured as the Maypo

off, Robethon, and two Turks-Mustapha and Mahomet,-meddled more with public affairs, and were to the full as venal as Chiffin, Pepys and Smith." Mahon, who calls Robethon "a prying, impertinent,

me writer says: "The friends and framers of the Triennial Bill were for the most part Tories, and its opponents for the most part Whigs. The framers and friends of the Bill for long Parliaments were all Whigs, and its enemies all Tories." When the measure came before the Lords, we find Baron Bernstoff, on the King's behalf, actually canvassing Peers' wives, with promises of places for their relatives, in order to induce them to get their husbands to vote for the Bill. Another of the early infringements of public liberty by the Whig supporters of George I., was the passing (1 George I., c. 5) the Riot Act, which had not existed from the accession of James I. to the death of Queen Anne. Sir John Hinde Cotton, a few years afterwards, described this Act, which is still the law of England, as "An Act by which a little dirty justice of the peace, the meanest and vi

uchies of Bremen and Verden to Hanover, in 1716, the King, as Elector, made a treaty with Denmark against Sweden, which treaty proved the source of those Continental wars, and the attendant system of subsidies to European powers, which have, in the main, created our enormous National Debt. Bremen and Verden being actually purchased for George I. as the Elector of Hanover, with English money, Great Britain in addition was pledged by George I. to guarantee Sleswick to Denmark. Sweden and Denmark quarrelling-and George I. as Elector of Hanover having, without the consent of the English Parliament, declared war against S

s issued, one in 1716, from the pen of Samuel Wesley, brother of John Wesley, is not w

ing in and his enemies out, He determined no longer confin

obscure in this poor little isle, And now Spain and Pretender have n

nd laughs at all the persons nominated fo

uch fools to be put to the helm; So for this time be easy, nor have jeal

or my regents, and you for my wench, And neither, I'm sure, will my

s of money from the South Sea Company for herself and the King, in order to shield from justice the principal person

se into favor. The King could speak no English; Carteret was the only one of the Ministry who could speak German. "All the communication that Walpole had with his master was in very bad Latin." The influence Carteret wielded over the King did not extend to every member of the Royal Family. The Princess o

e payments to Hanoverian troops commenced under this king, a payment which William Pitt afterwards earned the enmity of George II. by very sharply denounci

xt reign with increasing rapidity, 226 enclosure Acts being passed in the reign of George II., and 318,778 acres of land enclosed. As Mr. Fawcett states, up to 1845, more than 7,000,000 acres of

talk of obligations on the part of the people to endow each additional member of the Royal Family, the memory of these shameful extravagances should have some effect. George I. had a civil list of ￡

￡30,000 were traced to the King's mistresses, and a select committee of the House denounced the whole business as "a train of the deepest villany and fraud with which hell ever contrived to ruin a nation." Near the close of the reign, Lord Macclesfied, Lord Chancellor and favorite and tool of the King, was impeached for extortion and abuse of trust in his office, and, being convicted, was sentenced to pay a fine of ￡30,000. In 1716, Mademoiselle Schulenberg, then Duchess of Munster, received

grant was made under the influence of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of the King, and on the stipulation that she should receive a large share of the profits. These "Drapier Letters" were prosecuted by the Governmen

he old king's directions, and got his money by burning his will." In this, George II. only followed his royal father's example. When Sophia Dorothea died, she left a will bequeathing her property in a fashion displeasing to Greorge I

to their English conquerors, who had always preferred the policy of extermination to that of conciliation. Things were so sad in Ireland at the end of this reign, that Dean Swift, in bitter mockery, "wrote and published his 'Modest Proposal' for relieving the m