DOI article:
Beerbohm, Max: A note on George the Fourth
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27812#0255
By Max Beerbohm 251
him, when, in*his nineteenth year, he at length was given an estab-
lishment of his own in Buckingham House. How his young eyes
must have sparkled, and with what glad gasps must he have taken
the air of freedom into his lungs. Rumour had long been busy
with the confounded surveillance under which his childhood had
been passed.T A paper of the time says significantly that "the
Prince of Wales, with a spirit which does him honour, has three
times requested a change in that system." For a long time King
George had postponed permission for his son to appear at any balls,
and the year before had only given it, lest he should offend the
Spanish Minister, who begged it as a persona! favour. I know few
pictures more pathetic than that of George, then an overgrown
boy of fourteen, tearing the childish frill from around his neck
and crying to one of the royal servants, " See how they treat
me ! " Childhood Tas always seemed to me the tragic period of
life—to be subject to the most odious espionage at the one age when
you never dream of doing wrong, to be deceived by your parents,
thwarted of your smallest wish, oppressed by the terrors of manhood
and of the world to come, and to believe, as you are told, that child-
hood is the only happiness known : all this is quite terrible. And all
Royal children, of whom I have read, particularly George, seem to
have passed through greater trials in childhood than do the children
of any other class. Mr. Fitzgerald, hazarding for once an opinion,
thinks that "the stupid, odious, German, sergeant-system of disci-
pline that had been so rigorously applied, was, in fact, responsible for
the blemishes of the young Prince's character." Even Thackeray,
in his essay upon George III., asks what wonder that the son,
finding himself free atdast, should have plunged, without looking,
into the vortex of dissipation. In Torrens's "Life of Lord Mel-
bourne " we learn that Lord Essex, riding one day with the King,
met the young prince wearing a wig, and that the culprit, being
him, when, in*his nineteenth year, he at length was given an estab-
lishment of his own in Buckingham House. How his young eyes
must have sparkled, and with what glad gasps must he have taken
the air of freedom into his lungs. Rumour had long been busy
with the confounded surveillance under which his childhood had
been passed.T A paper of the time says significantly that "the
Prince of Wales, with a spirit which does him honour, has three
times requested a change in that system." For a long time King
George had postponed permission for his son to appear at any balls,
and the year before had only given it, lest he should offend the
Spanish Minister, who begged it as a persona! favour. I know few
pictures more pathetic than that of George, then an overgrown
boy of fourteen, tearing the childish frill from around his neck
and crying to one of the royal servants, " See how they treat
me ! " Childhood Tas always seemed to me the tragic period of
life—to be subject to the most odious espionage at the one age when
you never dream of doing wrong, to be deceived by your parents,
thwarted of your smallest wish, oppressed by the terrors of manhood
and of the world to come, and to believe, as you are told, that child-
hood is the only happiness known : all this is quite terrible. And all
Royal children, of whom I have read, particularly George, seem to
have passed through greater trials in childhood than do the children
of any other class. Mr. Fitzgerald, hazarding for once an opinion,
thinks that "the stupid, odious, German, sergeant-system of disci-
pline that had been so rigorously applied, was, in fact, responsible for
the blemishes of the young Prince's character." Even Thackeray,
in his essay upon George III., asks what wonder that the son,
finding himself free atdast, should have plunged, without looking,
into the vortex of dissipation. In Torrens's "Life of Lord Mel-
bourne " we learn that Lord Essex, riding one day with the King,
met the young prince wearing a wig, and that the culprit, being