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Transcriber's note:

Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section.

In the original volumes in this set, each even-numbered page had a header consisting of the page number, the volume title, and the chapter number. The odd-numbered page header consisted of the year with which the page deals, a subject phrase, and the page number. In this set of e-books, the odd-page year and subject phrase have been converted to sidenotes, usually positioned between the first two paragraphs of the even-odd page pair. If such positioning was not possible for a given sidenote, it was positioned where it seemed most logical.

In the original book set, consisting of four volumes, the master index was in Volume 4. In this set of e-books, the index has been duplicated into each of the other volumes, with its first page re-numbered as necessary, and an Index item added to each volume's Table of Contents.

A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES

AND OF WILLIAM IV.

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

and

JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY

In Four Volumes

VOL. IV.

Harper & Brothers PublishersNew York and London1901

CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

CHAPTER PAGE

LXIII. "OPENS AMID ILL OMENS" . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 LXIV. POPULAR ALARMS—ROYAL EXCURSIONS . . . . . . . . 15 LXV. GEORGE CANNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 LXVI. THE CLOSE OF CANNING'S CAREER . . . . . . . . . 46 LXVII. "THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC" . . . . . . . . . . 65 LXVIII. THE LAST OF THE GEORGES . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 LXIX. KING WILLIAM THE FOURTH . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 LXX. LE ROI D'YVETOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 LXXI. REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 LXXII. THE GREAT DEBATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 LXXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 LXXIV. THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOUR . . . . . . . . . . . 188 LXXV. THE STATE CHURCH IN IRELAND . . . . . . . . . . 205 LXXVI. "ONLY A PAUPER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 LXXVII. PEEL'S FORLORN HOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 LXXVIII. STILL THE REIGN OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . 261 LXXIX. THE CLOSE OF A REIGN AND THE OPENING OF AN ERA 280 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

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A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES.

CHAPTER LXIII.

"OPENS AMID ILL OMENS."

The closest student of history would find it hard indeed to turn to theaccount of any other royal reign which opened under conditions sopeculiar and so unpropitious as those which accompanied the successionof George the Fourth to the English throne. Even in the pages ofGibbon one might look in vain for the story of a reign thus singularlydarkened in its earliest cha

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