The UNHAPPY COUPLE
By 6am on 19 July 1821, Westminster Hall was packed with peers and privy counsellors, waiting to process to the Abbey for the coronation of their obese, ageing and extravagant new King, George IV. Suddenly, there came ‘a thundering knock’ at the door, and someone shouted, “The Queen – open!” All eyes turned towards the entrance, where the King’s estranged wife Caroline could be seen, standing on the threshold, ‘the crossed bayonets of the sentry’ blocking her path. “Let me pass; I am your Queen, I am Queen of Britain,” she cried, her increasingly angry commands echoing around the hall, before the heavy door was slammed in her face.
It was the same at every entrance. By order of the
