Trial of Princess Caroline,
For years George had been obsessed with getting a divorce from Caroline. Most of George's more reliable advisors had advised him to avoid proceedings at all costs. What would happen if Caroline's team decide to bring to the public's attention his numerous affairs and even more concerning his unofficial marriage to the Catholic, Maria Fitzherbert in 1785, especially with his coronation being planned?
However he was not to be thwarted, especially driven on by a vocal group of yes men, Following her departure to Europe in 1814 had used a series of none too effective spies to try to build a case of adultery against her. George set up what became known as the Milan Commission to build a dossier against Caroline, which when it was presented to the House of Lords became known as the "Green Bag."
Many of Caroline's former staff were given a series of inducements to provide lurid evidence of adultery between her and her former footman, Bartolomeo Bergami. She subsequently made him a baron.
Caroline's lead counsel, Henry Brougham, made many of the chief witnesses appear as very suspect and their evidence bought. The Crown's chief witness Theodore Majocchi, a former member of Caroline's staff who seems to have had a pang of conscience when he saw Caroline stated when giving evidence - "I do not remember" on more than one hundred and fifty occasions.
The whole affair was something of a shambles, as well as being a PR disaster for George. In fact, much of the circumstantial evidence against Caroline was quite damning but George's advisor's realised that it was a lost cause.
Newspaper sales went through the roof and there was only one subject under discussion. Polite society worried what their staff was being exposed to. Less polite society loved every moment of it, as did the caricaturists. Much of the imagery of the time was genuinely outrageous.
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