strict paternal control, and could stir nowhere without his governor, and a visit to that uncle whom the King so disliked was the last thing to be thought of; and, secondly, we see in the description of Brighton in 1782, 'The Duke of C. is at the head of the whole.' If the heir to the throne had been there, the Duke would have taken 'a back seat,' and the papers would have given due prominence to the visit; and therefore I incline to the opinion that, since the days of his childhood, his first visit to the watering-place he afterwards made so famous was in September, 1783, on which occasion the town was illuminated and there was a display of fireworks. During his stay of eleven days, he hunted, went to a ball, and to the theatre, besides the ordinary amusements of the place. In fact, his visit seems so to have impressed him, that from that date he made Brighthelmstone his abiding-place for, at least, a portion of the year. Huish,26 however, gives another version for his liking for the place:
'The Prince had now begun to manifest that predilection for Brighton, which induced him at a future period to make that town his residence. The report, however, which was current at the time, and which is actually founded on truth, goes so far as to state, that it was neither the marine views, nor the benefit of change of air, nor the salubrity of the place, which possessed, in the eyes of his Royal Highness, at this time, any great attractions; but that he was drawn thither by the angelic figure of a sea nymph, whom he, one day, encountered reclining on one of the groins on the beach. In this amour, however, his Royal Highness was completely the dupe. As far as personal charms extended, Charlotte Fortescue was of "the first order of fine forms"; but, as far as mental qualifications were to be considered, she was one of the most illiterate and ignorant of human beings. In artifice and intrigue she was unparalleled; and, withal, she knew how to throw such an air of simplicity and innocence over her actions, as would have deceived even a greater adept than his Royal Highness, in the real nature of her character. She soon discovered the exalted station of the individual whom she believed she had captivated by her charms; and, on the principle that the thing is of little value which is cheaply or easily obtained, she, for a time, frustrated every attempt of his Royal Highness to obtain a private interview with her. She kept her residence a complete secret, and, for some days, she was neither seen nor heard of. On a sudden, she would make her appearance, and then, suffused in tears, would speak of her approaching marriage, and her consequent departure from the country; and could that idea be borne by her royal lover? Heaven and earth were to be moved to avert such a direful calamity; a regular elopement was proposed, and, in order to give the affair a highly romantic air, it was arranged that the dress of a footman was to be procured for the beautiful fugitive, and that the Prince was to have a postchaise in waiting a few miles on the London road, to bear away his valuable prize. There is, however, an old adage which says, that much falls between the cup and the lip, and, in this instance, the truth of it was fully confirmed. The hour was anxiously looked for which was to bring the lovers into the undisturbed society of each other; but, as the Prince was dressing for dinner, the arrival of George Hanger, who had just then begun his career of eccentricity and profligacy in the fashionable circles, was announced. The Prince invited him to dine; excusing himself, however, at the same time, for the early hour at which he would be obliged to leave him, as he had most important business to transact that night in the metropolis. Dinner being over, the Prince inquired the business which had brought his visitor to Brighton in so unexpected a manner.
'"A hunt, a hunt, your Royal Highness," said Hanger, "I am in chace of a d – d fine girl, whom I met with at Mrs. Simpson's in Duke's Place; and, although I have taken private apartments for her in St. Anne's East, yet the hussy takes it into her head every now and then to absent herself for a few days; and I have now been given to understand that she is carrying on some intrigue with a fellow in this place. Let me but catch him, and I will souse him over head and ears in the ocean."
'The Prince now inquired what kind of a lady he was in pursuit of; and, by the description given, he doubted not for a moment, that the lady with whom he was to elope that very evening, on account of her approaching marriage, was the identical lady who had eloped from the protection of his visitor, and he began to consider how he could extricate himself with the best possible grace from the dilemma in which he was involved. That he was a dupe to the artifices of a cunning, designing girl, was now apparent to him; and, therefore, it would be his greatest pride and joy to outwit her. He, therefore, disclosed the whole of his intrigue with the runaway, and it was resolved that Hanger should put on one of the coats in which she was accustomed to see her royal lover, and take his seat in the chaise, instead of the Prince. The whole affair was well managed; the Prince remained at Brighton; Hanger bore off his lady to London, not a little chagrined at such an unexpected termination of her romantic elopement; but not many months elapsed before the lady gained an opportunity of repaying the Prince tenfold for the trick which he had played her.'
CHAPTER V
THE HON. GEORGE HANGER (afterwards the fourth and last Lord Coleraine) was at one time an especial friend of the Prince. He was educated at Eton and Göttingen, and was for some little time an officer in the first regiment of foot guards, which regiment he soon left in disgust at someone being promoted over his head. He then received an appointment from the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel as Captain in the Hessian Jäger Corps, then serving in America, and he was with this corps throughout the war. He, afterwards (in 1782), was made a Major in Tarleton's Light Dragoons, which was disbanded the following year, and he retired on half-pay. It was then that he joined the Prince's set, and received the appointment of equerry at a salary of £300 per annum, and this, combined with raising recruits for the East India Company, enabled him for a time to vie with the jovial crew with which he associated. But evil days fell upon him, and he dwelt in the King's Bench Prison from June 2, 1798, to April, 1799, and in 1800 set up for a time as a coal-merchant, and was nicknamed the Knight of the Black Diamond. He appears in many of Gillray's caricatures, but the most savage pictorial satire on him (by Cruickshank) was issued with the Scourge for November 2, 1812, where he is represented as a tall, full-faced man, wearing a long drab-coloured coat with a cape, and a star upon his right breast. Each of his arms encircles a gin-drinking old woman, and at his feet, one of which is cloven like a satyr's, sprawls a young woman who applies a bottle to her lips. A dandy, standing near, inspects the scene through his quizzing glass, and observes: 'Hang her! She's quite drunk.' A label issuing from the mouth of the principal person makes him observe: 'As for me, my name is sufficient; I am known by the title of the Paragon of Debauchery, and I only claim to be the [Prince]s Confidential Friend.' The letterpress description of the caricature contains the following illustrative paragraph:
'A tall, strapping-looking person, shabbily, but buckishly attired, with a peculiar cast of countenance, now stepped forward, and cried out, "My name is sufficient. Whoever has heard of – must know that I am without a rival in the annals of debauchery. I claim no higher honour than to be my Prince's friend."'
On the death of his brother, on December 11, 1814, he succeeded to the title of Lord Coleraine, but he never assumed the title, and disliked being addressed by it. On his death, unmarried, on March 31, 1824, at the age of seventy-three, the barony of Coleraine became extinct.
Huish tells several stories about Hanger.27 'It is well known that the above-mentioned person was the particular companion of his late Majesty, when Prince of Wales, and many of the youthful improprieties which he committed were ascribed, by the King, to the company which he kept; and, particularly, to the society of Sheridan and Major Hanger. On a particular occasion, when the latter was raising recruits, the King, hearing that the Prince was taken from place to place, by him and others in high life, collecting mobs, and throwing money to them in large quantities, for the sake of creating the fun of seeing a scramble, and other worse purposes, he, with much feeling, exclaimed, "D – n Sherry, and I must hang – hang – Hanger, for they will break my heart, and ruin the hopes of my country."'
The following will be read as a rich treat to the lovers of fun and mischief: it shows the extraordinary gaiety of the Prince of Wales's disposition, and the familiar manner in which he lived
'Memoirs of George IV.,' by Robert Huish, 8vo., vol. i., p. 80; London, 1831.
Vol. i., p. 97, etc.
