Mrs, Mary Fitz-Herbert and the "First Gentleman in Europe": George IV's Brighton Menage ERE pas never been o mose unpopular monarch How he came to be styled "the First Gentleman in Europe" ig indeed'a puzzle. At best, itis a severe reflection on the other "gentlemen" in Burope! in his private nor his public life did he display a single Virtue, It is dimieult to. say whether he was more hated when he was Prince of Wales, while he was Regent during his father's recurring periods of insanity, or ster he was crowned King of England. Always, when he Showed himself in public, he was greeted. with boos and hisses, and on more than one occasion When he was out driving stones were dung at him. and the windows of his carriage were smashed.
And this was Tittle more than a hundred years ago.
Yet. this man, hated by most, despised by all, won the love of one of the most loyal, faithful, virtuous women that ever' lived: and, as far as his depraved nature was capable Of fine feeling, he did in a measure Feturn that good woman's love.
When the Prince was fifteen years old, his tutor said of him: "He will be either the most polished gentle man or the most accomplished blackguard in Europe—possibly both." He proved to be both. Without ever (ransgressing against the code of manners and deportment_ pertaining toa gentleman of the time, he would, had he belonged to a lower rank in Rife, have been dubbed an unmitigated" scoundrel by every right thinking man, At twenty-one he had already taken and discarded several mistress es, among them the beautiful Mrs. Robinson—the Perdita of the famous Gainsborough picture now in the Wallace Collection. To her, when hho dismissed her, he gave a3 a parting. itt his personal bond for £20,000, That bond he dishonoured by refusing to meet it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.