own hand is asserted on what is called unquestionable evidence, and is in itself extremely probable from a story told of George iv. on his visit to Hanover in 1821. "Early in the morning," his physician-in-ordinary says, "a poor woman, with a countenance apparently much worn with sorrow, on her knees presented a petition to the King's Hanoverian chamberlain, which was rejected. I saw this from the saloon, from which I was looking down on the many thousand persons assembled in the courtyard, and I observed the expression of despair which followed. I hastened down, fearing to lose sight of her, got her petition, and presented it to the King.
"It craved his mercy for her husband, who was doomed to five years' hard labour in a fortress. She was the mother of eight little children, and, it need not be added, in great poverty and want. The crime was of a nature to be pardoned, and this was done with his pen instantly; for here his authority is absolute. We had the poor woman in the saloon, and you may imagine the rest."[1]
The view taken of the bargain at the time was given voice to by Caroline Herschel, and has since been frequently repeated to the King's discredit, without the retractation which she made after her brother's death. Here is the retractation. Writing to her nephew, in April 1827, she says:—"P.S.—I must say a few words of apology for the good King, and ascribe the close bargains which were made between him and my brother to the shabby, mean-spirited advisers, who were undoubtedly consulted on such occasions; but they are dead and gone, and no more of them! Sir J.
- ↑ Knighton, i. 169.
