ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, III, 2 December 1810, pp. 753–5. On the King’s illness, which is reported on every week during this period, see, for example, The Examiner, III, 16 December 1810, p. 785; 23 December 1810, pp. 801–2; and IV, 11 August 1811, pp. 512–13. The King, of course, suffered from porphyria which brought on a mental instability diagnosed as madness. He had suffered a severe bout in 1788, provoking the first Regency crisis. There had been rumours about him being in bad health in 1807 and again in 1809, so when he fell ill in October 1810, there were attempts to keep the news from the public. Hunt objects to the power held in this situation by the Privy Council (the chief advisors to the monarch) and even by physicians rather than Parliament. By the end of the year, moreover, Hunt and others were arguing that it was clear a Regency would have to be formed (see headnote below, pp. 159–60). The King would not recover prior to his death in 1820.
