with innocence.  He sent agents into Italy to inquire into the truth of those rumors; and their report so greatly confirmed them that, even before the King’s death, he laid it before the Prime-minister, with a demand that he should at once take steps to procure him a divorce, in which he professed to believe that the Princess herself would willingly acquiesce.  He was so far correct, that her legal advisers were willing to advise her to consent to “a formal separation, to be ratified by an act of Parliament.”  But such an arrangement fell far short of the Prince’s wishes.  The Princess Charlotte, the heiress to his throne, had died in childbirth two years before, and he was anxious to be set free to marry again.  The ministers were placed in a situation of painful embarrassment.  There was an obvious difficulty in pointing out to one who already stood toward them in the character of their sovereign, and who must inevitably soon become so, that his own conduct made the prospect of obtaining a divorce from the Ecclesiastical Courts hopeless; and the only other expedients calculated to attain his end, “a direct application to Parliament for relief, founded upon the special circumstances of the case,” or “a proceeding against the Princess for high-treason,” were but little more promising.  Indeed, it was afterward ascertained to be the unanimous opinion of the judges that the charge of high-treason could not be legally sustained, since the individual who was alleged to be the partner in the criminality imputed to her was a foreigner, and therefore, “owing no allegiance to the crown,” could not be said to have violated it.[184]

He chafed under their resistance to his wish, and would have deprived them of their offices, could he have relied on any successors whom he might give them proving more complaisant; but, before he could make up his mind, the death of George III. forced upon both him and them the consideration of his and his wife’s position, since it made it necessary to remodel the prayer for the royal family, and instantly to decide whether her name and title as Queen were to be inserted in it.  He was determined that they should not be mentioned; and, as the practice of praying for a Queen Consort by name appeared not to have been invariable, they were willing to gratify him on this point, though it was evidently highly probable that she would consider this as a fresh insult, sufficient to justify her in carrying out a threat, which she had recently held out, of returning to England.  Her ablest advisers did not, indeed, regard it in this light, since the prayer as now framed implored the Divine protection for “all the royal family” in general terms, in which she might be supposed to be included, and made no separate mention of any member of the family.[185] But, unfortunately, she was much more under the influence of counsellors who were neither lawyers nor statesmen, but who only desired to use her as a tool to obtain notoriety for themselves.