KEW IN FAVOUR 79 



lodgings. We may be sure Kew, in its small 

 way, was not behindhand in such loyal doings. 



But Kew was hardly again to welcome the 

 Father of his People. Repeated agitations went 

 to overthrow his reason for good the triumphant 

 marches of Napoleon, the tarnishing of British 

 arms not yet brightened by Wellington's victories, 

 the misconduct and unpopularity of his sons, the 

 death of his beloved youngest daughter, Amelia. 

 At the beginning of 1811, George had just wits 

 enough left to consent to the Prince's Regency. 

 A few months later, Charles Knight was one of 

 the Windsor crowd that saw their aged Sovereign 

 in public for the last time. Henceforth he lived 

 confined in the Castle, prisoner of blindness, by 

 and by of deafness, cheered by music, by religious 

 exaltation, and by delusive memories of the past, 

 more than by flitting glimmers of melancholy 

 reason, in one of which he had the satisfaction of 

 learning Napoleon's downfall and the recovery of 

 Hanover. A most pathetic figure was the blind 

 old King with his white beard, only now and 

 then visited by those nearest to him. It is said 

 that the selfish Regent was moved to tears when 

 one day he overheard his father murmuring the 

 complaint of Milton's Samson : 



