But of all the magnates who were opposed to reform, the prince regent was the most obstinate.  He was wholly devoted to pleasure.  His court at the Carleton palace was famous for the assemblage of wits and beauties and dandies, reminding us of the epicureanism which marked Versailles during the reign of Louis XV.  It was the most scandalous period in England since the times of Charles II.  The life of the regent was a perpetual scandal, especially in his heartless treatment of women, and the disgraceful revels in which he indulged.

The companions of the prince were mostly dissipated and ennuied courtiers, as impersonated in that incarnation of dandyism who went by the name of Beau Brummell,—­a contemptible character, who yet, it seems, was the leader of fashion, especially in dress, of which the prince himself was inordinately fond.  This boon companion of royalty required two different artists to make his gloves, and he went home after the opera to change his cravat for succeeding parties.  His impertinence and audacity exceeded anything ever recorded of men of fashion,—­as when he requested his royal master to ring the bell.  Nothing is more pitiable than his miserable end, deserted by all his friends, a helpless idiot in a lunatic asylum, having exhausted all his means.  Lord Yarmouth, afterward the Marquis of Hertford, infamous for his debaucheries and extravagance, was another of the prince’s companions in folly and drunkenness.  So was Lord Fife, who expended L80,000 on a dancer; and a host of others, who had, however, that kind of wit which would “set the table on a roar,”—­but all gamblers, drunkards, and sensualists, who gloried in the ruin of those women whom they had made victims of their pleasures.

But I pass by the revelries and follies of “the first gentleman” in the realm, as he was called, to allude to one event which has historical importance, and which occupied the attention of the whole country,—­and that was the persecution of his wife, who was also his cousin, Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick.  He drove her from the nuptial bed, and from his palace.  He sought also to get a divorce, which failed by reason of the transcendent talents and eloquence of Brougham and Denman, eminent lawyers whom she employed in her defence, and which brought them out prominently before the eyes of the nation,—­for the great career of Brougham, especially, began with the trial of Caroline of Brunswick, the unhappy woman whom the Prince of Wales married to get relief from his pecuniary necessities, and whom he insulted as soon as he saw her, although she was a princess of considerable accomplishments, and as amiable as she was beneficent.  The only palliation of his infamous treatment of this woman was that he never loved her, and was even disgusted with her.  No sooner was the marriage solemnized, than she was treated on every occasion with studied contumely, and scarcely had she recovered from illness incident