Augustus Frederick George IV., son of the preceding and of Queen Charlotte, born Aug. 12, 1762, died June 2G, 1830. He was educated with great care, and closely restrained until 18 years of age, when he commenced a career of extravagance and profligacy that contrasted painfully with the upright life of his lather. He early formed a connection with Mrs. Mary Robinson, an actress, and the wife of an attorney, who afterward became well known from her novels, verses, and autobiography. He became intimate with Fox, Sheridan, and other whig leaders, who were his companions in dissipation, and whose politics he adopted, in open opposition to his father. In 1783 his friends came into power as the famous coalition ministry, and on Nov. 11 he took his seat in the house of lords as duke of Cornwall, and as a supporter of the new administration, while they immediately demanded for him an augumented establishment and allowance, and Carlton house was assigned to him as a residence. When his friends fell from office he stood by them, and tried to restore them. In 1786 the debts of the prince were brought before parliament by Sheridan, but the king would not sanction a bill of relief.

In the preceding year the prince had privately married Mrs. Fitzherbert. There is no doubt about the marriage, but it was illegal as being without the consent of the king; and Mrs. Fitzherbert being a Roman Catholic, the marriage, if valid, would have excluded the prince from the succession. When it was referred to in the debate on the prince's debts, Fox denied it, as he said, by the highest authority. In 1791 a difference arose between the prince and his sporting companions, and he sold his horses, shut up Carlton house, and devoted himself to the payment of his creditors, and in a speech in the house of lords separated himself from his old political friends. In 1795 he espoused his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, in order to get his debts paid. After they had lived together for a year, during which their only child, the princess Charlotte, was born, they separated by common consent. Anxious for a complete divorce, the prince endeavored to prove his wife unfaithful. At this time he had returned to associations with Fox and his old friends, and was made a rallying centre by the whigs, while the tories naturally clung to the princess, who had the sympathy of the king. Under these circumstances took place the first investigation by parliament into her conduct.

The main decisions of the investigation, which alone were made public, acquit the princess fully, although the matter was made a subject of political dispute. It seems that at most she was guilty while in England only of imprudent acts, and her father-in-law always protected her, not only because he had caused the marriage, but because he hated her husband. It was not until he became regent in 1811 that the prince of Wales assumed political importance, and he then gave himself up to the tories. The years 1810 and 1811 were the period of Napoleon's greatest power. By conquest or by alliance continental Europe was under his control, although Sicily and Portugal were under the protection of England. In 1811 coolness arose between Napoleon and the czar Alexander. Early in 1812 Sweden became allied with Russia in resistance. The memorable Russian campaign followed. Wellington had taken Badajoz and Ciudad Ro-drigo, and won the battle of Salamanca, and England rejected Napoleon's overtures for peace.

War broke out this year with the United States, and success at first attended the English arms on the borders of Canada, while the frigate United States captured the British frigate Macedonian. In 1813 the war continued with varying fortune in America, and Wellington entered France in October. Napoleon was driven by the discontent at home to the campaign of 1814, beginning in January; but while by a bold movement he placed himself in the rear of his allied enemies, the latter marched upon Paris, which they entered March 31, and Napoleon abdicated and was taken to Elba. In America the city of Washington was taken, Aug. 24, but peace was signed with the United States at Ghent, Dec. 24. On March 1, 1815, Napoleon landed at Cannes, and an army was at once formed to oppose him in the Netherlands, of which Wel-lington took command on April 5. The victory of Waterloo, June 18, made England the most important power of Europe. The only wars of England now were in India, while the attention of the country was mainly given to the development of home industry and the agitation for parliamentary reform. An attempt was made in 1817 to assassinate the prince, and there was much discontent at his extravagance and vice.

His daughter, the princess Charlotte, died in 1817. He became king, Jan. 29, 1820. The Cato street conspiracy for the assassination of the ministry absorbed attention at the beginning of his reign. The king soon commenced an open persecution of his wife which agitated the whole country. A bill of pains and penalties was introduced into the house of lords, charging the queen with adultery. The trial lasted for many weeks, and the bill passed to a third reading Nov. 10; but the majority for it was so small and public opinion so decidedly pronounced against the prosecution, that the government withdrew it. Nominally victorious, the queen was really beaten, and died of chagrin in less than a year. The king visited Ireland, Scotland, and Hanover, and apparently was popular. He was, however, greatly perplexed by politics. The progress of liberal opinions was making itself felt in England, and the ministry had to go with the world. Castle-reagh's suicide and Canning's promotion were sources of much, trouble to him. The foreign policy of Canning, decidedly opposed to the policy of the holy alliance, was eminently distasteful to him.

When a French army, at the bidding of the holy alliance, entered Spain to restore absolutism (1823), England was greatly moved, and probably nothing but financial considerations prevented war with France. When Portugal appealed for English aid against Spain, that aid was promptly given. The independence of the Spanish American countries was effectually promoted. The Greek revolution added to the interest which the English felt in foreign affairs, from classical associations. Internal policy was liberalized. Peel led the way, through a tory minister, in meliorating the criminal law; Huskisson's commercial ideas began to make head; Brougham labored in the cause of education; and the work of Catholic emancipation went vigorously forward. The year 1824 was a period of great material prosperity, and was followed by a crash in 1825. The Burmese war, begun in 1824, ended in 182G with a considerable accession to the British territory on the eastern coast of the bay of Bengal. Early in 1827 the duke of York, heir presumptive to the crown, died, and the title was transferred to the duke of Clarence, while his office of commander-in-chief was given to the duke of Wellington. Lord Liverpool, who had been prime minister since 1812, was incapacitated from further attention to business by illness.

The contest that followed for the premiership ended in the triumph of Canning, whereupon seven of his associates resigned, and he was compelled to reconstruct the cabinet, which he did on a liberal basis. He died, however, before he could accomplish anything. His successor was Lord Goderich, whose ministry lasted but a few months, during which the Turkish fleet at Navarino was destroyed by the combined squadrons of England, France, and Russia; an event which the king called untoward in his speech at the opening of parliament. The ministry of Goderich was followed by that of Wellington, January, 1828, with the duke as first lord of the treasury and Peel as home secretary. The return of the tories to power was the signal for the revival of the emancipation agitation, and the Catholics proved successful in 1829. The ministry had to choose between civil war and giving up their principles, and they made the sacrifice required of them. The king, whoso bigotry and dread of popular ideas increased with his years, stood out to the last against the current of opinion, but was forced to give way. The dissenters had previously been freed from disabilities.

These acts, noble though they were, proved the ruin of the tory party, and so demoralized it that it could not stand before the feeling that was soon after roused over Europe by the French revolution of 1830. The king was taken seriously ill early in that year, and died in midsummer. The duke of Wellington, who was no flatterer, said of him after his death:

"He was the most extraordinary compound of talent, wit, buffoonery, obstinacy, and good feeling-in short, a medley of the most opposite qualities, with a great preponderance of good-that I ever saw in any character in my life." His short reign had been remarkable for the advance made in liberal sentiments, and for the many practical reforms which it had witnessed; changes with which the sovereign had little to do. The England of 1830 bore but small resemblance to the England of 1820, and still less to that of 1810, when as regent George IV. had commenced the life of a sovereign. He left no legitimate children, and was succeeded by the duke of Clarence, third son of George III., as William IV.