the times | Saturday May 28 2022 37
Comment
of John Nash. The Brighton Pavilion was lavishly
recreated in the Indian gothic style as the Regent’s
seaside palace. By the time George III died and he
finally acceded to the throne, George IV was already
57, obese, indebted, possibly addicted to laudanum,
ridiculed for his hedonism, dalliances and lavish
banquets. His reputation had been further damaged by
a very public custody battle with his estranged queen
over their daughter Princess Charlotte.
His appetite remained excessive to the end. In April
1830 the Duke of Wellington reported that the royal
breakfast consisted of “a Pidgeon and Beef Steak Pye... Three parts of a bottle of Mozelle, a Glass of Dry
Champagne, two Glasses of Port [and] a Glass of
Brandy”, followed by a large dose of laudanum. He
died the following June.
The obituarists were brutal: “There never was an
individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than
this deceased king,” The Times declared. “What eye
has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of
mercenary sorrow?” This was unfair. Prinny was self-
indulgent, vain and silly, but he was not stupid: had he
ascended the throne or become Prince Regent earlier
in life he might have made, if not a good ruler, at least
an adequate one. The era of the Prince Regent will
forever be associated with royal excess and frippery,
but the future George IV was impatient to exercise
regal power and by the time he got it the rot had set in.
P
rince Charles has also occasionally expressed
frustration with his long wait as heir.
“Impatient? Me? What a thing to suggest! Yes
of course I am,” he joked during a visit to
Scotland. “I’ll run out of time soon. I shall
have snuffed it if I’m not careful.” Now aged 73, he has
been the king-in-waiting since the age of 18. He is now
also the Prince Regent-in-waiting.
The Regency Act, passed in 1937 soon after George
VI came to the throne, sets out the procedure for
appointing a regent if the heir is still a minor or “in the
event of the incapacity of the sovereign”. The new
king’s presumptive heir, Princess Elizabeth, was then
under 18 and the act ensured that a regent would fulfil
the duties of monarch until she came of age: the
regent should be the next person in the line of
succession who was over 21, a British subject living in
the UK, and a Protestant, in accordance with the 1701
Act of Settlement. This would have been the king’s
brother, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.
When Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 her children
Charles and Anne was also still minors. In theory, if
she had died, her younger sister Princess Margaret, as
next in line, would have become regent until Charles
came of age. Instead, the act was amended to ensure
that if a regency was necessary during Elizabeth II’s
reign, the Duke of Edinburgh would act as regent. The
high-living Margaret, perhaps recalling the lifestyle of
Prinny, was not considered a suitable candidate for
regent. David Maxwell Fyfe, the home secretary,
described the amendment as a one-off arrangement:
“The amendment is confined to the Duke, and
accordingly, in the event of the Duke’s death, which we
all fervently hope will not occur for many years, the
amendment would cease to have effect.”
In 2013, after 33 years on the throne, Queen Beatrix
of the Netherlands abdicated in favour of her son.
Some believe the time has come for the Queen to do
likewise, but the word abdication is forever linked in
the public mind with the crisis of 1936 when Edward
VIII gave up the throne; as the longest-reigning
monarch in history, Elizabeth II does not want to
renounce one iota of royal power.
Instead, without formally relinquishing any of her
prerogatives or making Charles regent, she seems
likely to hand over some of the more onerous duties,
while retaining the crown and all the respect that goes
with her long, popular and highly successful rule: a
“soft regency” in which Charles does the day-to-day
business of ruling and some, but not all, of the more
significant constitutional elements of the job,
depending on the Queen’s availability, fitness and
inclinations. Constitutionally speaking, remaining a
monarch while progressively reducing the duties of
monarchy is something of a fudge but it works: as
throughout her reign, the Queen is doing it Her Way.
But royal history has a way of throwing up surprises.
When the Queen dies, Charles III will succeed her and
then, in time, William V. But what if, in some terrible
royal pile-up, all three die before William’s children are
old enough to ascend to the throne? Under the current
regency rules, Prince Harry would act as regent, but he
lives abroad and would therefore be ineligible. In that
case the Prince Regent would be Prince Andrew, a
royal who would come to the role, like Prinny before
him, trailing a most unsavoury reputation.by the end of that year he was permanently insane
and lived in seclusion in Windsor. At Christmas 1819
he spoke nonsense non-stop for 58 hours.
Following the precedent established a dozen years
earlier, the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent
under the quaintly named “Care of King During his
Illness etc. Act 1811”, a monarch in all but name. The
Regency period, from 1811 until George III’s death in
1820, was an era of cultural refinement, court intrigue
and flamboyant fashion, as most recently reflected in
the TV series Bridgerton. But it was also a time of
intense political upheaval: Napoleon was defeated at
Waterloo, the Luddites rebelled against the march of
technology, and Spencer Perceval became the only
British prime minister ever to be assassinated.
The Prince Regent played a smaller political role than
his father, being more interested in style and taste, the
fashions of Beau Brummell and the great architectureThe regency question overshadowed the last years of
George III. Whereas a transition to Charles as Prince
Regent would signal continuity and stability, the
future George IV was made of very different princely
material, and everyone knew it, including his father.
Prinny’s debts continued to climb and by 1795 he owed
£630,000, equivalent to more than £66 million today.
His marriage to his cousin, Princess Caroline of
Brunswick, was a disaster. His mistresses included an
actress, a divorcée, the Countess of Jersey and at least
two marchionesses. The precise number of his
illegitimate offspring has never been established.
Relations between the king and the prince grew
steadily worse.
By 1810, George III had never been more popular,
but his fragile mental health deteriorated sharply after
the death of his daughter Princess Amelia, and then
collapsed. Despite some signs of improvement in 1811,
Remaining a
monarch while
progressively
reducing the
duties of
monarchy is
something of a
fudge but it
works ... the
Queen is doing
it Her Way
“
ARTHUR EDWARDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY; MOVIESTORE/SHUTTERSTOCK