King George IV leaving Ramsgate for his visit to Hanover, 25th September, 1821

George IV, as Prince of Wales, had courted unpopularity thanks, mostly, to his extravagance for much of his adult life. After assuming the Regency in 1811 due to his father's incapacity, he began to spend money on an even greater scale with the result that by the time he actually became King in January 1820, his reputation and that of the monarchy were at a low ebb. The unparalleled magnificence of the Coronation festivities the following July coupled with, as the public believed, the new king's extremely shabby treatment of his estranged consort Caroline in refusing her entry to Westminster Abbey for the ceremony, merely exacerbated the situation and few British monarch have been crowned amongst so little popular support. When, after the protracted Coronation celebrations finally ended, the King resolved to visit his German dominion of Hanover, he decided to sail from Ramsgate rather than Dover as the latter port had feted Queen Caroline the previous year when she returned to England and greatly displeased him. Arriving in Ramsgate by road on 24^th September, the King spent the night at Cliff House, the home of his old friend Sir William Curtis. The next day, the 25^th, the King drove down to the harbour in an open carriage where, to his delight, the whole town seemed to have turned out to bid him farewell. Eventually reaching the quayside through roads thronged with enthusiastic crowds, he was rowed out to the royal yacht anchored offshore which then proceeded to Calais. These unexpected expressions of loyalty at Ramsgate so moved the King that he subsequently altered his plans to return home six weeks later; instead of sailing up the Thames to Greenwich as had been agreed, he ordered his yacht to put into Ramsgate where he landed for his brief second visit on 8^th November, and returned to London by road.