AUTHOR’S NOTE
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AUTHOR’S NOTEThe description of the Coronation of King George IV, His Majesty’s clothes and the extravagant banquet are all authentic. Queen Caroline died on August 8th, exactly twenty days after she was refused entry to Westminster Abbey for her husband’s Coronation.
On the day of the Queen’s death, the yacht Royal George had arrived off Holyhead. The King had all the masts of the squadron lowered as a sign of mourning.
On August 12th, His Majesty’s fifty-ninth birthday, he crossed the Irish Sea ‘in great spirits’. The State Visit, for the first few days of which the King remained quietly ‘in seclusion’ as a mark of respect to his wife, was a triumphant success.
“The King was always fond of children,” Lord Melbourne told Queen Victoria.
His Majesty bought an enormous amount of children’s playthings to give away as presents. His accounts in the Royal Archives show bills for dolls and lead soldiers, boxes of ninepins, miniature farm yards, play houses, mechanical animals, rocking horses, games and toys of every description.
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