The further parliamentary agitation of the prince's pecuniary diffi culties in 1787 was prevented by the king at last giving his count to a grant of 160,000/. for the payment of his son's debts, and of 20,0001. for completing the repairs of Carlton House. Both these sums were greatly inadequate, but the arrangement afforded some relief for the moment, and enabled the prince to resume his former state aud habits of life. The king's illness, in the close of the year 1788, and the pro ceedings that took place in regard to the proposed regency, have been noticed in the preceding article. Upcn this occasion Mr. Fox asserted that the "exercise of the royal power was the clear right of the heir apparent, being of full age and capacity, during the kings incapacity;" but he afterwards admitted that "the heir apparent had no right to assume the executive power," and that, although the right was hi tho prince, "it was subject to the adjudication to him of its possession and exercise by the two houses." It may be doubted how far his position was strengthened or made more intelligible by this quali fication. On the king's recovery both he and the queen showed themselves deeply offended with the conduct of the prince during his father's illness, although no distinct charge of undutifulness appears to have been alleged. A reconciliation however was effected about the beginning of the year 1790, through the interposition, it is under stood, of Lnrd Thurlow, who had his own ends to serve. The king however would not consent to relieve the prince from his fast increasing embarraasmente by another application to parliament except upon the one condition, that he would marry.
It was in the summer of 1791 that a transaction occurred which made a great noise at the time and long afterwards—the retirement of the prince from the turf, in consequence of the decision of the Jockey Club, that he must either take that step or dismiss a servant whom they held to be guilty of unfair management in relation to a particular race with one of his master's hnrses. The character of the tribunal is perhaps hardly such as to entitle us to draw from this decision any conclusion unfavourable to the prince, who is said to have had only a few hundred guineas depending on the race ; and the circum stances seem to make it altogether improbable that either he or his servant was guilty of the foul play imputed. The prince stood by his servant, and settled on him an annuity of 200/. a year. He soon after sold off all his horses, to the number of 500, and again retrench ing his expenses, and shutting up Carlton House, devoted the greater part of his income to the payment of hie creditors. He now also publicly separated himself from Mr. Fox and his party by a speech in the House of Lords, the first he had ever delivered, on the 31st of May 1792, in which he declared his adherence to that section of his party which had gone over to the minister, in the division which had taken place on the subject of the French revolution. He afterwards took a formal leave of his old friends in a letter addressed to the Duke of Portland.
At length, in the summer of 1794, the prince, borne down by the heavy and rapidly augmenting load of his incumbrances, yielded to the demand so long urged by his father, and conseuted to marry. His unfortunate marriage with his cousin, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, aecoud daughter of the Duke of Brunswick and the Princess Augusta [Clew= took place on the 8th of April 1795. On this his income was raised to 115,000L a year, 25,000/. being deducted from that sum for the payment of his debts, which according to the state ment made to parliament amounted to about 650,0001. Disgust and alienation, as is well known, soon followed between the newly-married parties. So early as the beginning of June, the princess demauded the removal of Lady Jersey, who was one of her ladies in waiting; this the princo positively refused. The birth of a daughter, the late
Princess Charlotte Augusta, on the 7th of January 1796, produced no return of affection; they continued to live for some mouths longer under the same roof, but without speaking to each other ; a complete separation then took place, the princess retiring with her infant first to the village of Charlton, near Greenwich, and afterwards to Blackheath.
There are no events requiring much notice in the prince's history for some years after this. He frequently solicited his father to give him a military appointment, and a short time before the breaking out of the rebellion of 1798 he requested, it is said, to be allowed to undertake the chief goverumeut of Ireland; but all these petitions met with a determined refusal. About this time also he partially renewed his connection with Mr. Fox aud his old friends—but it was now more an association of conviviality than of politics. The priuce came nevertheless to he popularly considered as again the head or rallying-post of the Whig party ; and on that and other accounts the estrangement between him and his father soon became as complete as before. His conduct to the Princess of Walee WAS viewed by the kiug with the deepest displeasure. In these circumstances it natu rally happeued that the Tories at this time clung to the princess, as their opponents did to her husband. Such was the political situation of the parties -when the first investigation into the conduct of the princess took place in the latter part of the year 1806, by a com mission constituted by royal warrant, and consisting of the late lords Erskine, Grenville, Spencer. and Ellenborougb, all then members of the caLleet. The allegations which led to this investigation pro ceeded from Sir John and Lady Douglas, who charged her royal highness not only with great Impropriety and indecency of behaviour, but with having been delivered in 1802 of s male child, whom she had ever since brought up and retained near her under the name of William Austin. The report of the commissioners decidedly acquitted her royal highness on the latter and main charge; but added that there were other particulars deposed to by the witnesses examined respecting her conduct, "such as must, especially considering her exalted rank and station, necessarily give occasion to very unfavour hie interpretations." The report however, and the answer of the princess (drawn up by her confidential advisers, Lord Eldon, Mr. Perceval, and Sir Thomas Plumer), together with other papers, having been afterwards submitted to the cabinet council (the Whigs were now out of office), it was declared by a minute dated 22nd of April 1807, to be the unanimous opinion of the members not only that the two main charges of pregnancy and delivery were completely disproved, but " that all other particulars of conduct brought in accusation against her royal highness, to which the character of criminality can be ascribed, are satisfactorily contradicted, or rest upon evidence undeserving of credit." With the exception of these decisions, all the proceedings in this affair were kept secret for some years; but the depositions of the witnesses and the other papers were at length surreptitiously published in 1813, in the well-known volums entitled ' The Book.' The history of the investigation into the conduct of the princess is iu all its stages curiously illustrative of the move ments and changes of position of tho two great political parties; she was condemned or acquitted by the official reporters upon her con duet, according as the party to which her husband attached himself or their opponents happened to be in power, and her cause was taken up by either as the prince bestowed his favour upon the other.