Grand Masters of the United Grand Lodge of England [ugle] and of Scotland

Not a fatter fish than he
Flounders round the polar sea.
See his blubbers - at his gills
What a world of drink he swills ...
Every fish of generous kind
Scuds aside or shrinks behind;
But about his presence keep
All the monsters of the deep...
Name or title what has he? ...
Is he Regent of the sea?
By his bulk and by his size,
By his oily qualities,
This (or else my eyesight fails),
This should be the Prince of Whales.

The Prince Regent - and later, as George IV - proved to be one of the major problems for Lord Liverpool's ministry. Often, he opposed government measures. A contemporary wrote:

He had few public virtues to compensate for the offensiveness of his private example. His duties to the State - the mere routine of the Kingly office - were invariably performed with tardiness and reluctance. Without any strength of character but that which proceeded from his irresistible craving for ease and indulgence, his best qualities were distorted into effeminate vices. The constitutional bravery of his house forsook him, and he became a moral coward, whom his official servants had to govern as a petted child. [Harriet Martineau, A History of the Thirty Years Peace, 1816-46, Vol 1 (1858).

Brighton Pavilion was costly and George had huge debts: his extravagance proved to be an embarrassment to the government because the electorate wanted to see tax cuts and reduced expenditure during the economic depression that followed the end of the French Wars. One MP hoped the House

would hear no more of that squanderous and lavish profusion which in a certain quarter resembled more the pomp and magnificence of a Persian satrap seated in all the splendour of oriental state, than the sober dignity of a British prince, seated in the bosom of his subjects. He hoped, too, that they should hear no more of expenditure on thatched cottages [the Royal Lodge at Windsor] that were hardly fit for princes. [CD Yonge, The Life of Lord Liverpool, Vol 2 (Macmillan, 1868) p.268]

George IV influenced the composition of the Cabinet for many years; he refused to accept George Canning as a Cabinet member until 1822, for example. It was only then that the suicide of Castlereagh required that the ministry be strengthened by the addition of Canning.

Liverpool fell victim to the new king's anger over the failure of George IV's attempt to divorce his wife Caroline in 1820. Liverpool was unable to persuade parliament to pass the Bill of Pains and Penalties: it was thought that George IV's behaviour was as bad as that of his wife. Even the next PM, the Duke of Wellington, had problems in persuading the king to pass essential legislation such as Catholic Emancipation (1829):

The King talked for six hours. The Duke says he never witnessed a more painful scene. He was so evidently insane . . . . The King objected to every part of the Bill. He would not hear it. . .. A quarter of an hour after he [the Duke] got home . . . he received a letter from the King declaring that to avoid the mischief of having no Administration he consented to the Bill proceeding as a measure of Government, but with infinite pain. [Lord Colchester (ed.), Lord Ellenborough's Political Diary, vol. 1: 1828-1830 (Bentley, 1881) pp.376-379.

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39a. 1790 Rawdon-Hastings, John [FRANCIS], Lord Rawdon, 2nd Earl of Moria

Acting Grand Master

Francis RAWDON-HASTINGS, 2nd Earl of Moira – 1793; b. 9 Dec 1754 County Down, d. 28 Nov 1826, at sea off Naples.
See also a large .pdf file on the Rawdons at: http://www.education.mcgill.ca/profs/cartwright/rawdon/rawdons.pdf




http://www.thepeerage.com/p2387.htm#i23868

Children:

Sophia Frederica Christina Rawdon-Hastings+ d. 28 Dec 1859

Selina Constance Rawdon-Hastings d. 8 Nov 1867

Flora Elizabeth Rawdon-Hastings b. 11 Feb 1806, d. 5 Jul 1839

George Augustus Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings+ b. 4 Feb 1808, d. 13 Jan 1844

----------

Francis Lord Rawdon-Hastings of Moira was a Deputy Grand Master of the Freemasons for 23 years to the Grandmaster, Prince of Wales [1790] later King George IV [1762-1830], son of George III.

aide de camp to the king, and having the rank of colonel in the army.
This nobleman was born 9 December 1754, and having embraced the military profession, distinguished himself in several important actions in the southern army in the American war. He was constituted 20 November 1782 a colonel in the army, colonel of the hundred and fifth regiment of foot, and one of the aides de camp to his majesty. By king George the third he was created baron Rawdon of Rawdon. The hundred and fifth regiment was reduced soon after the peace of 1783.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Rawdon-Hastings%2C_1st_Marquess_of_Hastings
Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, (9 December 1754 - 28 November 1826) was a British politician and military officer who served as Governor-General of India from 1813 to 1823.
Hastings was born in County Down, the son of John Rawdon, 1st Earl of Moira and Elizabeth Hastings, Baroness Hastings. He joined the British army in 1771 and served in the American Revolutionary War. There he served at the battles of Bunker Hill, Brooklyn, White Plains, Monmouth and Camden, at the attacks on Forts Washington and Clinton, and at the siege of Charleston. Perhaps his most noted achievement was the raising of a corps at Philadelphia, called the Irish Volunteers, who under him became famous for their fighting qualities, and the victory of Hobkirk's Hill, which, in command of only a small force, he gained by superior military skill and determination against a much larger body of Americans. He succeeded his father as the 2nd Earl of Moira in 1793.
Becoming a Whig in politics, he entered government as part of the Ministry of all The Talents in 1806 as Master-General of the Ordnance, but resigned upon the fall of the ministry the next year. Being a close associate of the Prince-Regent, he was asked by the Prince-Regent to try to form a Whig government after the assassination of Spencer Perceval in 1812 ended that ministry. Both of Moira's attempts to create a governing coalition failed, and the Tories returned to power under the Earl of Liverpool.
Through the influence of the Prince-Regent, Moira was appointed Governor-General of India in 1813. His tenure as Governor-General was a memorable one, overseeing the victory in the Gurkha War 1814 - 1816; the final conquest of the Marathas in 1818; and the purchase of the island of Singapore in 1819. His domestic policy in India was also largely successful, seeing the repair of the Mogul canal system in Delhi as well as educational and administrative reforms. He was raised to the rank of Marquess of Hastings in 1817.
Hastings' tenure in India ended due to a financial scandal in 1823, and he returned to England, being appointed Governor of Malta in 1824. He died at sea off Naples two years later.
On July 12, 1804, he married Flora Campbell, 6th Countess of Loudoun and had at least five children:
Flora Elizabeth Rawdon-Hastings (11 February 1806–5 July 1839), died unmarried.

George Augustus Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings (4 February 1808–13 January 1844)

Sophia Frederica Christina Rawdon-Hastings (1 February 1809–28 December 1859), married John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute and had issue.

Selina Constance Rawdon-Hastings (1810–8 November 1867), married Charles Henry and has issue

Adelaide Augusta Lavinia Rawdon-Hastings (25 February 1812–6 December 1860), married William Murray, 7th Baronet of Octertyre
http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/friends/rawdon.html

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