On 13 May 1820, Tom Grenville writes to the Marchioness of Buckingham, Anna Eliza Brydges, with some medical advice. The following extract sums up much wisdom on the medical practices of the day:

I am no great friend as you know to the many-coloured phials which grow out of the grim-gribbler of the learned professors of the black doses; but a sensible man who has passed a long life in watching all the infirmities that our frail frames are subject to is certainly very likely to have a good guess at what spring it is that wants oiling in the clockwork; & tho’ they cannot take their magnifying glass & look at the machinery, as Arnold would examine his Timekeeper, & tho’ they must therefore travel in the dark, yet they become long-sighted by the long habit & experience & when that is found united with good sense & judgement, very important help may be afforded them.

Tom Grenville adds a waspish footnote about the consort of King George IV, Caroline of Brunswick:

At White’s somebody was wondering at the passion for Lady C “with a leg as thick as a post” what then said Copley, tho’ it is a post remember it is “Poste Royale”

Lady Maria Nugent writes a note in her diary after dining at my father’s house in Pall Mall, where the talk was of William Pitt’s illness. Mr Pitt, Prime Minister, died two days later. Maria’s last words in this record will resonate with politicians and their families in any era.

Dine again in Pall Mall. A sociable and agreeable, though a rather melancholy party, poor Mr. Pitt being at the point of death, and almost the sole subject of conversation. Came home, reflecting much upon the lives of politicians, and how absorbing politics are of every other feeling.

“How absorbing politics are of every other feeling,” Maria wrote. Days after this was written, I was to join the new government. How true her words were to prove!

The cartoon below by James Gillray shows my family's government being kicked out by George III. I am head first in the water at the front with the label: "Last Stake of the Broad-Bottomed Family". Ouch!

Richard Temple

Maria McNamara, Catholic governess for my younger sister Mary, writes from London to Charles O’Conor, the Stowe librarian:

In regard to the King the news to day is rather better. The attack he had on Friday night was not what they call a paroxism but a little attack of the gropies (begging your pardon).

The King is shown here in his Coronation Robes in a portrait by Ramsay. The portrait once hung in the State Room at Stowe. It was sold in the 1848 sale for 6 guineas to Mr R Owen of Bond Street, who sold it to Robert Holland, MP, of Portland Place. The portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

Tomorrow, Monday, my sister also writes to Charles O’Conor on the King’s health:

The King they say really is getting better, but quite childish, & will never be able again even to represent a King. He fancies himself a clock & stands against the wall imitating the clicking of a clock and nodding his head. He then cuts a stick and fancies he is watch making.

Chandos Buckingham